Music
Vierne was considered one of the greatest musical improvisers of his generation. His few improvisations that were preserved on early phonograph recordings sound like finished, polished compositions.
He had an elegant, clean style of writing that respected form above all else. His harmonic language was romantically rich, but not as sentimental or theatrical as that of his early mentor César Franck. Of all the great fin de siècle French organists, Vierne's music was perhaps the most idiomatic for his chosen instrument and has inspired most of the great Parisian organist-composers who followed him. His output for organ includes six organ symphonies, 24 Fantasy Pieces (which includes his famous Carillon de Westminster), and 24 Pieces in Free Style, among other works. There are also several chamber works (sonatas for violin and cello, a piano quintet and a string quartet for example), vocal and choral music, and a Symphony in A minor for orchestra.
Read more about this topic: Louis Vierne
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around—the music and the ideas.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum for us; we hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)