Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword, by Jesse Eschbach
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- A Note to the Reader on Terminology
- Introduction
- Chapter One Duruflé's Childhood and Early Education
- Chapter Two Life at the Cathedral Choir School
- Chapter Three Lessons with Charles Tournemire
- Chapter Four Lessons with Louis Vierne
- Chapter Five The Conservatoire Student
- Chapter Six Duruflé's Distinctions
- Chapter Seven The Contested Successions at Notre-Dame and Sainte Clotilde
- Chapter Eight Duruflé's Performing Career
- Chapter Nine The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Ten The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Eleven Professor of Harmony at the Paris Conservatoire
- Chapter Twelve Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Thirteen Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Fourteen Duruflé's Compositions: Their Genesis and First Performances
- Chapter Fifteen Duruflé's Role in the Plainsong Revival
- Chapter Sixteen The Vichy Commissions
- Chapter Seventeen The Requiem
- Chapter Eighteen The Musical History of Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Nineteen The Organs at Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Twenty Duruflé as Organist and Teacher
- Chapter Twenty-One Duruflé and Organ Design
- Chapter Twenty-Two The Church in Transition
- Chapter Twenty-Three The North American Tours
- Chapter Twenty-Four The Man Duruflé
- Appendix A Maurice Duruflé
- Appendix B Discography
- Appendix C Stoplists of Organs Important to the Careers of Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Chapter One - Duruflé's Childhood and Early Education
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword, by Jesse Eschbach
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- A Note to the Reader on Terminology
- Introduction
- Chapter One Duruflé's Childhood and Early Education
- Chapter Two Life at the Cathedral Choir School
- Chapter Three Lessons with Charles Tournemire
- Chapter Four Lessons with Louis Vierne
- Chapter Five The Conservatoire Student
- Chapter Six Duruflé's Distinctions
- Chapter Seven The Contested Successions at Notre-Dame and Sainte Clotilde
- Chapter Eight Duruflé's Performing Career
- Chapter Nine The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Ten The Orchestral Musician
- Chapter Eleven Professor of Harmony at the Paris Conservatoire
- Chapter Twelve Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Thirteen Marie-Madeleine Chevalier
- Chapter Fourteen Duruflé's Compositions: Their Genesis and First Performances
- Chapter Fifteen Duruflé's Role in the Plainsong Revival
- Chapter Sixteen The Vichy Commissions
- Chapter Seventeen The Requiem
- Chapter Eighteen The Musical History of Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Nineteen The Organs at Saint Étienne-du-Mont
- Chapter Twenty Duruflé as Organist and Teacher
- Chapter Twenty-One Duruflé and Organ Design
- Chapter Twenty-Two The Church in Transition
- Chapter Twenty-Three The North American Tours
- Chapter Twenty-Four The Man Duruflé
- Appendix A Maurice Duruflé
- Appendix B Discography
- Appendix C Stoplists of Organs Important to the Careers of Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Like many another quaint Norman town, Louviers was typical for the halftimbered houses and shops that leaned with precarious medieval charm over its cobblestone streets, a small and pleasantly situated industrial town. But by its enchanting site on twenty-one shallow branches of the river Eure, Louviers distinguished itself from other Norman towns, the factories of its flourishing textile trade straddling those streams in the manner of an industrial Venice.
The modest home of the Duruflé family stood at the northeast edge of town, at 59, rue du Quai, next to a café, where several streams of the river converge on their way north to the Seine. Charles and Marie-Mathilde lived there with their sons Henri, Marcel, and Maurice. Across the street from the family's nondescript two-story row house, which stood directly on the street, was a grocery store, and next to it a butcher. The train station was a five-minute walk from their home, eastward across the river.
The late-medieval church of Notre-Dame was the architectural and religious heart of town and was the church attended by the Duruflé family. The edifice stands just a few blocks south of their home, its squat tower visible from their front door, and has a sense of grandeur that belies its relatively small size. A tower originally stood above the crossing, but when Maurice was nearly four years old it was felled by a serious storm. The ravages of time and the bombardments of war have blackened the whitish stone; its north side is tinted green with moss, and its south yellowed by the sun. The stonework of the exterior south flank is riotously ornate, the product of its late gothic aesthetic. It was in this church that Maurice Duruflé discovered his vocation as a musician.
Astride one of the Eure's streams a block east of the church is the old convent of the Pénitents de Saint François, constructed in 1646 as a Franciscan monastery. It was closed during the Revolution but subsequently housed a boys’ school and then a prison. Today it is the home for the École municipal de Musique Maurice Duruflé, established in the 1980s.
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- Maurice DurufléThe Man and His Music, pp. 9 - 14Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007