Mutin/Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Collégiale Saint-Pierre of Douai (Nord)

At once monumental in scale and public-oriented in character, organs are of all musical instruments those most implicated in the history of men: witness that of the Collegiate Church of Douai, looted at the end of the Great War, replaced in 1922 by another built in 1914 for imperial Russia and never delivered... On 15 August 1919, a month after the Victory Te Deum, a British patron of the arts, Claude Johnson, attended Vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Thrilled by the improvisations of Marcel Dupré, who was substituting for Louis Vierne at the time, he asked him to write them down: the result, Fifteen Pieces (the Vêpres de la Vierge) op.18, was premiered in 1920 in London.

Born in 1965, Vincent Genvrin studied organ with Jean Boyer at the Conservatory of Lille, with Odile Bailleux and then with Xavier Darasse at the National Conservatory in Lyon where he received his diploma in 1986. He subsequently did postgraduate work in Belgium with Bernard Foccroulle and Jean Ferrard. In 1988 he won first prize at the Alexandre Guilmant Competition in Boulogne-sur-mer, and in 1994 the International Recording Award of the Liszt Society of Budapest for his interpretation of Via Crucis with the Sacrum Choir of Riga (Latvia). In Paris he is titulaire of the historical François Henri Clicquot organ in Saint Nicolas des Champs and the Schwenkedel organ of Saint Thomas d’Aquin.

Vincent Genvrin has distinguished himself through a good ten critically acclaimed record releases and is Artistic Director of the Hortus label. He is the author of several articles devoted to the history of the organ and its music. For the review L’Orgue he is preparing a major study of Marcel Dupré’s Fifteen Pieces op. 18 which are the basis of this recording.