Noël Brabancon - Élévation No. 5" (alla Haydn)

Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) contributed a vast amount of music to the organ literature. One of the areas that seems to receive relatively few performances is his 4 Books of Noëls.

The music for all 4 books (virtually ALL of Guilmant's music!) is available here: http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Guilmant,_Alexandre

This lovely work, "Noël Brabancon - Élévation No. 5" (alla Haydn) comes from the Third Book.

Written "Adagio" and in the warm key of E major, it uses the Hautbois of the Recit for the solo voice. While I believe that it is the French custom to use the soft 8' Fonds with the stop, I have used it without, as this gives a more "pungent" quality to the sound, although it becomes a little "thin" in the upper registers.

For the accompaniment, Guilmant calls for an 8' Flute, but I wanted to use a sound we don't hear too often, so I combined the 8' Cor de nuit with the Unda maris 8', both on the Positif. The Unda maris is designed to make a celeste with either the Salicional (quite LOUD) or the Flute (MUCH softer). The "beating" is very gentle, and almost unnoticeable.

Composed in the style of Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), Guilmant really captures the delicacy and harmonic manner of a Hadyn "slow movement".