Marie-Claire Alain
Marie-Claire Alain was the youngest child in a family of distinguished musicians, born August 10, 1926, in St. Germain-en Laye, a Paris suburb. Her father, Albert Alain, a composer and amateur organ builder, had been a pupil of Guilmant and Fauré. Her sister Odile was a promising soprano and pianist who lost her life early in a mountaineering accident; her older brother, Olivier, was a composer, pianist, and musicologist. Her oldest brother was the renowned Jehan Alain, a composer and organist whose teachers included Dupré, Dukas, and Jean Roger-Ducasse. He numbered Messiaen and Poulenc among his closest friends and his works for organ -- Litanies, in particular -- established him as one of the brightest stars among rising French composers in the decade before his battlefield death in 1940, at 29. A twin sense of loss and inheritance informed her studies and career.
With the allied liberation of Paris in August 1944, she entered the Paris Conservatoire, studying with Dupré for organ, Pié-Caussade for counterpoint and fugue, and Maurice Duruflé for harmony. Duruflé composed one of the finest of his small but masterly group of organ works as an hommage to Marie-Claire's brother, the Prélude et fugue sur le nom d'Alain, Op. 7 (1942). She studied with Duruflé from 1944 until 1950, schoolwork being augmented by private lessons. During her Conservatoire years, she carried off four Premier Prix. After the inauguration of her career in 1950, she took a prize for organ at the Geneva International Competition and gave her first public recital. The Amis de Orgue awarded her the Bach Prize in 1951. After a further two years of study with Gaston Litaize, she took up her career in earnest, giving well over 2000 recitals worldwide. Her recordings number in the hundreds, and she thrice recorded the complete organ works of Bach. By the 1980s, she had become known as a specialist in 17th and 18th century music, with numerous recordings of works by Couperin, Grigny, Daquin, Vivaldi, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Handel, C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, and Mozart -- among many others -- to her credit. But she also made distinguished recordings of Romantic repertoire with albums of works by Mendelssohn, César Franck, Liszt, Widor, Vierne, Poulenc, and Jehan Alain -- whose punctilious execution is suffused with passion -- carrying into the 21st century living traditions extending to the middle of the 19th. She was also much in demand as a teacher.
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Franck : Organ Works (- Apex)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 29.02.1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Daquin: Noëls pour orgue (Aux grandes orgues de la cathédrale Saint-Théodorit d'Uzès)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 10.06.2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach, JS : Complete Organ Works Vol.4
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 01.06.1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concerts au grand orgue de Saint-Étienne-du-Mont à Paris
Marie-Claire Alain / Thierry Escaich / Daniel Roth / Vincent Warnier
Klassik - Erschienen bei Intrada am 01.01.2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Widor : Organ Symphonies 4 - 6 & 9, Organ Symphonies 1 - 3 [Excerpts] - Apex (- Apex)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 01.04.1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
L'œuvre pour orgue de Jean-Sébastien Bach, vol. 6 (Aux grandes orgues de l'église Sainte-Marie d'Helsingborg) (Stereo Version)
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: 6 Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard BWV 1014 - 1019 (Remastered 2021)
Michèle Auclair, Marie-Claire Alain
Klassik - Erschienen bei Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording am 08.07.2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Passacaille, Préludes & Fugues pour orgue (Mono Version)
Klassik - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
French Organ Music from the 19th and 20th Centuries: Widor, Vierne, Alain, Boëllmann & Gigout
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 10.07.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Toccatas et fugues pour orgue (Mono Version)
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Vierne, Alain & Langlais: Messes pour chœurs et deux orgues
Marie-Claire Alain, André Luy, Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, Michel Corboz
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.01.1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Couperin: Messe à l'usage des paroisses & Messe pour les couvents (À l'orgue de la cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Poitiers)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 10.02.2023
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Alain: L'œuvre pour orgue, vol. 2. Fantaisies, chorals, variations (À l'orgue de la cathédrale Saint-Christophe de Belfort)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 19.06.2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Pièces pour orgue (Aux grandes orgues de l'église Saint-Merri de Paris) (Mono Version)
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Widor, Gigout & Boëllmann: Toccatas (Aux grandes orgues de l'église Sainte-Clotilde de Paris) (Mono Version)
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Sebastian Bach - Organ Works
Klassik - Erschienen bei Playaudio am 05.07.2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Organ Masterpieces, Vol. 2
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 01.06.1988
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Liszt : The Great Organ Works
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 17.10.2011
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Bach: Chorals & Extraits de l'Oratorio de Noël (Arranged for Organ, Mono Version)
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Intégrale des sonates pour orgue aux grandes orgues Marcussen de l'église de Varde, vol. 2 (Stereo Version)
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Grigny: Premier livre d'orgue (À l'orgue de la cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Poitiers)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 20.01.2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo