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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Daquin: Noëls pour orgue (Aux grandes orgues de la cathédrale Saint-Théodorit d'Uzès)
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 10 jun. 2022
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
Clásica - Editado por Intrada el 1 ene. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach, JS : Complete Organ Works Vol.4
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 1 jun. 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Widor : Organ Symphonies 4 - 6 & 9, Organ Symphonies 1 - 3 [Excerpts] - Apex (- Apex)
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 1 abr. 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)
Varios - Editado por BNF Collection el 1 ene. 1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Passacaille, Préludes & Fugues pour orgue (Mono Version)
Clásica - Editado por BNF Collection el 1 ene. 1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
French Organ Music from the 19th and 20th Centuries: Widor, Vierne, Alain, Boëllmann & Gigout
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 10 jul. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: 6 Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard BWV 1014 - 1019
Michèle Auclair, Marie-Claire Alain
Clásica - Editado por Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording el 8 jul. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Toccatas et fugues pour orgue (Mono Version)
Varios - Editado por BNF Collection el 1 ene. 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
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 1 ene. 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)
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 10 feb. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Alain: L'œuvre pour orgue, vol. 2. Fantaisies, chorals, variations (À l'orgue de la cathédrale Saint-Christophe de Belfort)
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 19 jun. 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)
Varios - Editado por BNF Collection el 1 ene. 1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Widor, Gigout & Boëllmann: Toccatas (Aux grandes orgues de l'église Sainte-Clotilde de Paris) (Mono Version)
Varios - Editado por BNF Collection el 1 ene. 1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Sebastian Bach - Organ Works
Clásica - Editado por Playaudio el 5 jul. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Organ Masterpieces, Vol. 2
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 1 jun. 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Liszt : The Great Organ Works
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics International el 17 oct. 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Chorals & Extraits de l'Oratorio de Noël (Arranged for Organ, Mono Version)
Varios - Editado por BNF Collection el 1 ene. 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)
Varios - Editado por BNF Collection el 1 ene. 1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Grigny: Premier livre d'orgue (À l'orgue de la cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Poitiers)
Clásica - Editado por Warner Classics el 20 ene. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concerts au grand orgue de Saint-Étienne-du-Mont à Paris
Marie-Claire Alain / Yves Castagnet / Thierry Escaich / Vincent Warnier
Clásica - Editado por Intrada el 1 ene. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo