De Jules Lemaître AWV 72a, 1935?

The following text and title are written in Alain’s manuscript (N6.15) at No.15 between Canon pour Piano et Harmonium and Fantasmagorie.

De Jules Lemaître:
L'angoisse de sentir sa plainte
Expirer dans l'isolement
La soif d'être aimé et la crainte
D'aimer trop douloureusement.

(By Jules Lemaître:
The anguish of feeling his complaint
Exhale in isolation
The thirst to be loved and the fear
To love too painfully.)

François Élie Jules Lemaître (1853 – 1914) was a patriotic French literary critic and dramatist. He was professor at Grenoble University in 1883 for just one year and resigned his position to devote his time to literature.

Originally for piano (AWV72), the piece was published by Universal Edition in 1980 as the first of ‘Quatre Œuvres pour Orgue’.

I decided to play the melody on the Pedal 8’ Nachthorn because I liked the doleful sounds it produced against the simple Gambe ‘drone’.