Damin Spritzer plays organ music composed by women who were organ students of Marcel Dupré at the Paris Conservatory. She plays the three-manual C. B. Fisk organ, Op. 111, built in 1999 for the Gothic Hall at the University of Oklahoma, where Prof. Spritzer directs the organ department. The organ is named in honor of Prof. Spritzer's famous predecessor, Mildred Andrews Boggess (1915-1987), who was also a Dupré student

Henriette Puig-Roget 1910–1992: Deux Priéres Pour Grand Orgue
   Prière pour un jour de douleur (Dies irae)
   Prière pour un jour de joie (Sub tuum praesidisum)

Jeanne Joulain 1920-2010: Prélude pour la fête de Rameaux Hosanna Filio David
Jeanne Joulain: Élévation pour le Saint jour de Pâques Victimae paschalis

Marie-Louise Henriette Girod-Parrot 1915–2014:
Prelude, Choral, et Fantasie: Triptyque sur l’Hymne Sacris Solemnis
  I. Prélude - Modéré
  II. Choral
  III. Fantasie

Girod-Parrott: Fugue (et Choral) sur un thème de Psaume de Claude Le Jeune

Germaine Labole 1896–1942: Triptyque
   Méditation
   Extase
   Joie
Germaine Labole: Symphonie en si mineur
   Prélude
   Fugue
   Aria
   Final

Joie: Women Students of Marcel Dupré
by Damin Spritzer

The legacy of master to pupil is a profound connection in the organ world, and those relationships are at the heart of the programming for this album of organ works by women composers of the 20th century, all of whom share this connection with the foremost organ virtuoso and pedagogue of their time, Marcel Dupré (1886-1971). However, she who specifically connects these elements to the University of Oklahoma and to the selection of this Fisk Organ for this recording is former OU organ professor Mildred Andrews (1915–­1987), also a student of Dupré, and whose estate made possible the fund for OU’s Mildred Andrews Boggess Memorial Organ.

One of the preeminent organ professors of the United States, Miss Andrews taught organ at the University of Oklahoma for 38 years beginning in 1938. During her decades at OU she trained fourteen Fulbright scholars and twenty winners of national competitions. In 1959, the American Guild of Organists named her The Outstanding Organ Teacher in North America. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and awarded the University’s Distinguished Service Citation. Born in Hominy, Oklahoma, her parents managed to find funds for her piano lessons and she herself began to teach when she was only in high school. She completed a degree in piano at the University of Oklahoma in 1937, a master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1940. In 1939, Dupré urged her to give up her teaching to pursue an international concert career, but she declined and dedicated her life to her students, including continuing her studies with Dupré to perfect her own teaching technique. This program is dedicated to her memory and her legacy, which inspired my research into women composers and students of Dupré.

Henriette Puig-Roget
(9 Jan 1910 – 24 Nov 1992)
From the musical archives Présence Composi­trices: Resources et Promotion, author Florence Launay wrote the following biography of Puig-­Roget, based on information from her daughter, Pauline Puig, and Françoise Mautalent, and translated into English by Raphaël Meyer:

Henriette Puig-Roget was born in Bastia [Corsica] in 1910, her mother a sculptor and her father an army officer. A brilliant piano, organ, and composition student at the Paris Conservatory, she won a prize for composition in 1932 in the class of Henri Büsser. Her wish to also study conducting was rejected by director Henri Rabaud. In 1933, she won the Second Prix de Rome for composition. She became the organ-master for the Oratoire du Louvre (1933-1979)1 and the Paris Synagogue (1933-1952), all the while pursuing a career as a concert pianist and organist. She was also conductor of voice at the Paris Opera from 1938 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1957, the year she succeeded Nadia Boulanger as professor of accompaniment at the Conservatory. In 1940, she married Cata­lan architect Ramon Puig Vinyals, with whom she had a daughter, Pauline. After her 1979 retirement, she became a concert performer and professor of music in Japan until 1991. Despite being very discreet about her composing, she leaves behind an oeuvre of over two hundred and fifty works (most of them composed between 1926 and 1956), of which only about forty have been published: a hundred-odd mélodies and chansons, twenty or so choir pieces, a dozen piano pieces, about thirty for organ, fifteen chamber music pieces, a dozen symphonic pieces (notably concertante), pedagogical pieces, and some radio music.

   Loïc Mallié spoke thusly about Puig-Roget’s Triathlon (1977) for organ: “These three short pieces are a true masterwork of vibrant intensity: colourful, vivacious, with a sliver of nostalgia in the Andante. All of her virtuosic and poetic talent is assembled here, in a sort of inspired synthesis.”

In 1991, Puig-Roget spoke about the difficulties faced by women composers specifically: “I have never had to complain about my male colleagues, but rather about a mindset in the wider public, which considers ‘women’s works’ with some condescension.“2

Henriette Puig-Roget entered the Paris Con­ser­vatory at age 9 in 1919. Marcel Dupré was a student at the Paris Conservatory until 1920, then became the organ professor in 1926, succeeding Eugène Gi­gout (1844-­
­1925). Thus, Dupré taught Hen­ri­ette; she also studied there with Charles Tourne­mire (chamber music), among others, and ultimately received six first prizes in the areas of piano, harmony, music history, piano accompaniment, counter­point, fugue, and organ.

The organs with which she was most closely associated during her lifetime were the Joseph Merklin organs of the Oratoire du Louvre in Paris (1898), which underwent major restoration between 1957 and 1962 and is in active use today,3 and the 1875 Merklin organ of the Grand Synagogue de la Victoire of Paris,4 a two-manual, 26-rank organ that later was worked upon by the firms of Gutschenritter in 1960 and and Cicchero in 1980 with minor additions of upper work and mixtures, and according to the synagogue website, is used largely for weddings at the time of this release.5

Composed in 1934,24 Deux Priéres Pour Grand Orgue were first published in 1946 as a pair. Both priéres are generated musically from Gregorian melodies. The first opens with declamatory, unison-octave statements of the well-­known Roman Gregorian chant, Dies irae, the sequence from the requiem (funeral) mass for centuries and a frequently quoted, evocative, and more recognizable melodies of Western music history.6 Fragments of the chant are then expanded upon in furious outbursts of notes which lead abruptly to a resigned, closing harmonization of the chant in-­full over an offset bass line that resembles a quiet heartbeat, perhaps signaling repose and reflection.
The second prayer, dedicated to Puig-Roget’s mother, is derived from the lesser-known, very beautiful Gregorian melody, Sub tuum prae­sidisum, an ancient chant and prayer dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and possibly dating back to the third or fourth century.7

In the words of her daughter, Pauline Puig, in an email to me in March of 2025,

The prayer for a day of sorrow, based on the theme Dies irae, evokes the death of Hen­ri­ette’s brother, Jean, in October 1933, at the age of 33. He was Henriette’s only brother. The dedication was made during the Lemoine edition in 1939. The score is dedicated to Jean and also to Henriette’s father, Henry, who had just passed away in November 1939, at the age of 79. The prayer for a day of joy, based on the theme, Sub tuum praesidium, evokes the mercy of the Virgin Mary “when we are in trial.“ This score, also published by Lemoine in 1939, is dedicated to Henriette’s mother who, like her, was going through the trials of the death of loved ones.

Jeanne Angèle Desirée Yvonne Joulain
(22 July 1920 – 1 Feb 2010)
Jeanne Joulain was born in Amiens, France, to musical parents.8 Her father, a teacher in Paris, played the violin and her mother was a piano teacher. In 1934, she entered the conservatory of Amiens. Her studies included classes of solfege, piano, cello, chamber music, orchestra, harmony, counterpoint, and musical composition with Pierre Camus (a former composition student of Charles-Marie Widor). She began her organ studies there in 1936 with Colette Ponchel, one of the last pupils of Louis Vierne.

In 1938, the grand organ of Amiens Cathedral in her home town was restored, and Marcel Dupré performed. A small orchestra had been gathered for the occasion and Joulain, serving as a member of this orchestra as a cellist, was introduced to Marcel Dupré by her aforementioned organ teacher, Camus. In 1943, she enrolled at the École César Franck, where she later won the diploma of musical composition. Then in 1945, Joulain wrote to Dupré to request private organ lessons with him. He accepted, offering to prepare her to enter the conservatory. For two years, she attended his “petit cours” in Meudon, and in 1947 she passed the entrance exam for the Conservatoire de Paris. While a student there, she won First Prizes in organ and musical improvisation in 1952 in the class of Marcel Dupré. In 1950, she won competitions to be able to teach, and began teaching in February 1951 at the Conservatoire de Lille.9 In October 1952, she left for the conservatory of Douai where she remained from 1960 to 1970, and ceased to teach actively in 1982.10

She was titular organist of the Sainte Jeanne d’Arc church in Amiens, then for the Collégiate church of Saint-Pierre of Douai and finally for Saint-Maurice in Lille. She gave numerous recitals in France including in Chartres Cathedral, Saint-­Sul­pice, Notre-Dame de Paris, Bordeaux, Béziers, Toulon, Belley, and abroad (Altenberg, Mons, Brussels, Tournai, St Brice and Tournai Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New-York city, and St Paul’s Cathedral in London. In addition to her teaching and concert work, she was a correspondent for the Musique-Sacrée magazine L’Organiste. Among her students was celebrated organist Philipe Lefebvre, who remembers her as a wonderful teacher.11 She died in Lille on 1 February 2010 at the age of 89. Many fellow organists were present at her funeral in Lille to mourn her passing.

Published separately in volumes of Orgue et Liturgie (the volumes titled Prèludes à L’Introït and Élévations12), these works both programmatically set Gregorian chants as well. Hosanna filio David is used as the antiphon at the Blessing of Palms for Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, and this triumphant setting is indicated to be played avec joie (with joy). The second setting features Victimæ Paschali Laudes, one of the medieval sequences preserved in the 1570 Missale Romanum after the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which tells the story of the battle of death and life where Christ, the Paschal victim and victorious over death, reconciles humanity.

Marie-Louise Henriette Girod-Parrot
(12 Oct 1915 – 29 Aug 2014)
Marie-Louise Henriette Girod-Parrot first studied the organ with Henriette Puig-Roget and later enrolled into the Conservatoire de Paris to study with Marcel Dupré (organ and improvisation), Norbert Dufourcq, and Noël Gallon (harmony). She was awarded first prizes for organ and improvisation in 1941, then a first prize for the history of music in 1944, fugue, and counterpoint. Organist Jeanne Demessieux was a classmate and a lifelong friend, and she was a colleague also of Jehan Alain. Girod was present at the 1,750th organ recital of Louis Vierne at Notre Dame, Paris,  when he suffered a stroke or heart attack (accounts differ) and died at the organ.

Her first organ pupil was a young Pierre Cochereau, who went on to serve until his death as organist of Notre Dame in Paris. Following in the footsteps of her teacher, Henriette Puig-­Roget, Girod served as organist of the Reformed Church of the Oratoire du Louvre from 1941 to 2008, and also of the Synagogue du Nazareth in Paris, a position briefly held in 1851 by Charles-­Valentin Alkan. The original console of the synagogue organ was destroyed by a bomb during the war and the organ, originally of two manuals and 11 ranks built in 1852 by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, was rebuilt in 1950 by Gutschenritter.13

In 1961, Marie-Louise Girod was invited by the famous French film director Alain Resnais to contribute to the film music of what is probably his most famous film, Last Year at Marienbad. About ninety percent of the music for this film consists of organ music, which enhances the surrealistic atmosphere of the individual scenes. It was composed by Francis Seyrig (brother of the film’s main actress Delphine Seyrig and a student of Mes­siaen) and recorded on the then barely completed new organ of the Oratoire du Louvre.

The Gregorian chant used as the basis of the Prelude, Choral, et Fantasie: Triptyque sur l’Hymne “Sacris Solemniis” is the hymn written by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) for the feast of Corpus Christi (the Solemnity of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ). The portion of the text of Sacris solemniis that begins with the words Panis angelicus (bread of angels) has often been set to choral music separately from the rest of the hymn, most famously in a choral work by César Franck.

Norbert Dufourcq writes in the published edition,
 
Marie-Louise Girod… seems to have followed another programme; she visibly sought unity through a Latin text, that of the hymn of the day and through the three paraphrases which this Gregorian chant suggested to her. After the harmonization of the theme as a chorale, the prelude obeys to a strict contrapuntal discipline. Each of the hymn’s fragments is introduced in a two-part texture and ends up as a canon at the octave between soprano and tenor, while the two supporting parts keep dialoguing on two secondary planes. The same rigour inhabits the chorale in its form and harmonic language. The latter obeys to an obvious concern for tension or painful torment, while each of the ornamented episodes of the hymn soars above, in complete serenity and peace: it is a journey of complex and severe beauty in the midst of which, sometimes, the composer gives us the beneficial pause of a perfect chord [triad?] which collects the hymn’s cadences. A fast fantasy borrows its rhythm from the gigue; the fantasy is sometimes warlike with its fanfares. Under these fleeing polyphonies, the theme of the Sacris solemniis places its chant in longer note values before arriving at a brilliant peroration.”

As with the works by Joulain featured on this disc, Girod’s Fugue was originally published in 1954 in the volume of Orgue et Liturgie titled La Fugue.14 It employs as its theme a melody found in two psalm settings of Renaissance composer Claude Le Jeune (1528-1600), an innovative and important composer of his time. This particular Genevan tune is used by Le Jeune in three of his musical settings, and bears a significant resemblance to the 1524 Lutheran chorale tune known as Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, or, “Out of the depths I cry unto thee,” from Psalm 13. Le Jeune sets it as the taille, or tenor, in his setting of Psalm 65:

All praise on thee O God attendeth, in Sion peacefully, to thee on whom our trust dependeth, The vow there [sic] paid shall be. And Thou again thy eare applying, The prayer of thine dost heare, All flesh unto thy presence flying, Before thee shall appear.15

as the “cinquiesme, une octave plus haut” or the top voice of his setting of Psalm 72:

Upon the king by thee elected Thy judgments Lord bestow. His princely Son by thee directed, With justice thine endow. That he thy chosen people guiding, His justice may shine bright. The poore opprest with patience hiding, by him may have their right.);16

and finally in his Dodecacorde, Part III, in his “Pse. 72. De l’onziesme mode” in the taille of the derniere partie, or last part of the setting.17
Girod writes a marvelously extended fugue using this melody as the subject. Her dedication on the score reads, “A mon cher Maïtre Norbert DUFOURCQ.“
The first section of the fugue builds a solemn, sonorous crescendo over four pages before a rising stretto takes us briefly afield harmonically but to an abrupt halt, after which the second section continues with the theme now harmonized by running eighth notes for four additional pages. This time, the crescendo builds again, relentlessly, finally through several modulations. The theme is heard in augmentation in octaves in the pedal until it fragments into rising reharmonizations that set the stage for the final section of the work, titled “Choral.” With densely chromatic, Dupré-esque rhythmic drive, churning 16th notes are heard over the theme, again in augmentation in the pedal in octaves, and returned to its original key.

Germaine Labole
(22 Dec 1896 - 13 Nov 1942)
Of Germaine Labole, precious little information was previously known or documented of her life, and generally was limited to the knowledge that she was organist of St-Martial in Bordeaux, France, as inscribed in the score to her symphony, and that she studied with Marcel Dupré at some point in time. The most comprehensive document discussing her music, family history, origins, and compositions was written by German musicologist and author Otto Paul Burk­hardt18 as this album was in preparation. His findings were published in January 2025 as a five-­page article on Labole for Organ–Journal für die Orgel.19

Labole’s 1940 Symphonie en si mineur, dedicated to Dupré, was the generative composition that led to the research for this entire album, which is dedicated to the lesser-known women students of Dupré.
Paraphrased and translated20 from Burk­hardt’s research, we know that Labole was from a musical family and her father was Pierre Nelson Labole (1863-1943), a well-known composer and music publisher who was prolific in writing popular and military music. He wrote approximately 200 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, mazurkas, and marches, many for wind ensem­bles, and was also the author of a textbook Mé­thode moderne élémen­taire (Modern Classical Method).

Burkhardt writes, “Her exact date of birth can be documented in the Archives Bordeaux Métropole. The 1896 marital records record that on December 24, composer Pierre Nelson Labole, 33, and his wife Clémence, née Mandosse, 29, announced the birth of their daugh­ter Marie Germaine Labole, who had been born ‘the day before yesterday at 5:00 p.m.’ —hence, on December 22, 1896.”

He goes on to say, “Essentially, only these key facts are circu­lating: Germaine Labole, born in Bordeaux in 1896, studied with Marcel Dupré, to whom she also dedicated her Sym­phonie en si mineur, and worked in her hometown as titular organist at the Église Saint-­Martial until her death in 1942… [The Church of Saint-Martial], completed in 1841 in the basilica style, is located in the Chartrons district on the north bank of the Garonne. The organ, completed in the same year, was built by Jean-­Baptiste Henry. The classically French-­style instrument has 30 stops, including reed stops such as cromorne, trompette, clairon, and basson on all three manuals and pedal.The last repair was recorded in 2003; the condition of the organ is considered difficult to play.21

...Germaine Labole composed chamber music, vocal, piano, and organ works. After her early pieces in a lighter style, her interest soon turned to sacred music. In keeping with her position as organiste du grand orgue de Saint-Martial, she gave regular concerts there, sometimes performing her own compositions – whether they were premieres remains unclear…

The Symphony, subtitled “for grand organ,” comprises four movements: Prélude, Fugue, Aria, and Final. Probably composed in the late 1930s, it was published in 1940 by Éditions S. Bornemann, a publisher with whom Dupré also published several works. With the title “Symphony” and the aforementioned dedication A mon cher Maître Marcel Dupré, Labole explicitly refers to the tradition of the French organ symphony. Labole’s compact formal concept differs significantly from [Charles-Marie] Widor’s large-­scale cycles, which consist of up to seven movements; however, in its reduced four-­movement format, hers nevertheless ties in with Widor’s last symphonies.

Organist Jonathan Orwig wrote a brief analysis of Labole’s Symphonie en si mineur22 which Burkhardt summarizes in his article:

On closer examination, the main theme, with its quasi-syncopated style running in 3/4 time, dominates the Prélude in various forms and characters, displaced by octaves, fifths, and fourths, in contrasting harmonic and gestural contexts, until it evaporates upwards in the flute register. The Fugue presents the rhythmically altered, prolonged theme in 4/4 time and builds to increasingly dense narrow sections. In the aria, only the altered theme head is recognizable; the initial intervals are each reduced by a semitone. Labole operates here at the limits of tonality, although the third-related G major is looming. The theme returns in a rhythmically striking profile in the finale, richly counterpointed by sixteenth-note fragments of the motif head. The harmonically complex and incredibly sweeping, grandiose final movement, with dotted rhythms, ends in powerful B major.

Regarding her Triptyque, Burkhardt says in his 2025 article,

The Triptyque may also have been composed in the late 1930s. According to Jean-Emmanuel Filet, Christian Robert rediscovered the manuscript in the 1960s and immediately advocated for its publication. Labole’s teacher, Marcel Dupré, also apparently advocated for this with his publisher, Bornemann, who subsequently published the work in 1966. Triptyque comprises the three movements: Méditation, Extase, and Joie. The first two movements are extended, tranquil harmonic reflections that build to magically luminous cantilenas. One can also detect Ravelian pentatonic arabesques and Messiaenian sixths ajoutées. The final movement, with its ultimate reprise of the original motif in the pedal, sparkles vividly, flickering up and down. Joie is Labole’s most frequently performed and most popular piece. Dupré’s influence, according to US organist Damin Spritzer, is evident in this “‘exuberant’ movement, but so is Labole’s ‘own, clear voice.‘”

The organ of Église Saint-Martial, Bordeaux, Gironde, where Labole is known to have been organist, was originally built by the firm Henry (1841), then subsequent work was undertaken variously by Wenner & Götty (1858), Puget (1956), Organeria Española (1965), and Groleau (1977). The organ has 30 stops and three keyboards.23
_______

1https://theclassicalstation.org/blog/this-week-at-the-classical-station-239/
2https://www.presencecompositrices.com/en/
compositrice/puig-roget-henriette/
3https://oratoiredulouvre.fr/patrimoine/les-orgues-de-loratoire-du-louvre
4https://www.organsparisaz4.organsofparis.eu/Synagogue%20Victoire.htm
5https://www.organsparisaz4.organsofparis.eu/Synagogue%20Victoire.htm
6 Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). “Dies Iræ” . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
7 Roberta Mazza (2019). Dating Early Christian Papyri: Old and New Methods – Introduction, in Journal for the Study of the New Testament, vol. 42(1) (2019)
8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Joulain
9https://www.orgues-chartres.org/jeanne-joulain/?lang=en
10https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Joulain
11 Conversation with author in December 2024
12https://www.schola-editions.com/files/3314 /5399/0473/Catalogue_orgue_2016.pdf
13https://www.organsparisaz4.organsofparis.eu/Synagogue%20Nazareth.htm
14https://www.schola-editions.com/files/3314/
5399/0473/Catalogue_orgue_2016.pdf
15 A-R Editions, Inc. Madison. Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, Volume 98. Claude Le Jeune. Ed. Anne Harrington Heider. Pages 112-113
16 Ibid. Pages 126-127
17 A-R Editions, Inc. Madison. Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, Volume 78. Claude Le Jeune. Dodecacorde. Part III. Pages 288-291
18https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Paul_Burkhardt
19 https://organ-journal.com/artikel/
die-­unbekannte-aus-bordeaux/
20 Translated by D. Spritzer with permission from Burkhardt
21 https://inventaire-des-orgues.fr/detail/
orgue-bordeaux-eglise-saint-martial-fr-33063-
borde-stmart1-t/
22www.evensongmusic.net/pdf/Labole.pdf
23https://orgue-aquitaine.fr/annuaire/Orgue-de-Bordeaux-Eglise-Saint-Martial.html
24 John Henderson, A Directory of Composers for Organ, 2nd Ed., John Henderson Publishing Ltd., Swindon, UK, 1999, p. 478

C. B. Fisk Organ, Opus 111
Catlett Music Center, University of Oklahoma
by Dr. Clark Kelly, DMA
Professor Emeritus of Organ and Church Music, UO School of Music

Mildred Andrews Boggess (1915-1987) was one of Marcel Dupré’s most devoted American students. She established a nationally-known tradition of pedagogical excellence at the University of Oklahoma School of Music during her tenure as organ professor from 1938 to 1976. Mildred regretted, however, that her students never had the benefit of a fine concert organ on campus. After her retirement, the School of Music made plans for a new center. In 1982, Mildred and her successor as organ professor, Clark Kelly, consulted the legendary Charles Brenton Fisk (1925-­1983) about their hopes that his firm might build a three-manual concert organ for the School. A pioneering genius of twentieth-century organbuilding, Fisk was enthusiastic about the idea, offering sketches for such an instrument and advice about its placement.

The state’s economic difficulties halted the completion of the music center building until the 1990s, after the deaths of Mildred Boggess and Charles Fisk. The final stage of its construction included an extraordinary entryway hall—110 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 75 feet high—striking in its contemporary gothic styling. With its high balcony and mantle of 4.5 seconds of reverberation, this “Gothic Hall” proved to be a cathedral-like location for the concert organ. The C.B. Fisk firm of Gloucester, Massachusetts, (Charles Fisk’s own team of colleagues) completed installation of the organ in summer 1999. Funded by Mildred’s estate and by contributions from her students, the instrument became the Mildred Andrews Boggess Memorial Organ.

This organ’s unique tonal character was the conception of Steven Dieck and David Pike of C. B. Fisk, and Professor Clark Kelly. Its sound is a blending of great eras of organbuilding in America, England, France and Germany. The foundation stops throughout the organ are full and lush. The upperwork provides a compelling clarity in the spacious acoustic. With its eclectic stoplist, the instrument can render with integrity a broad and varied spectrum of repertoire.

For this program, Damin Spritzer’s registrations reflect the sounds of the French Romantic organs played by Marcel Dupré and his students. On the Fisk, registers such as the Violin Diapason, Voix céleste, Flûte traversière, and Hautbois exude warmth and clarity, like similar stops on the organs of Cavaillé-Coll. The Flûte harmonique increases its dynamic presence and loveliness as it ascends, very much as does that stop at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. The brilliant reed chorus provides not only the fiery color but also the broad blend of a powerful French Grande Chœur.

Fisk Organ, Opus 111
Catlett Music Center, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
45 ranks, 33 independent voices, 2,466 pipes, 61-note manuals, 32-note Pedal

Great Man I
16 Prestant
8 Octave
8 Spillpfeife
8 Flûte harmonique
4 Octave
2 Superoctave
VI-VII Mixture
8 Trumpet
4 Clairon
Positive to Great
Swell to Great

Positive Man II
8 Principal
8 Gedackt
4 Octave
4 Rohrflöte
2-2/3 Nazard
2 Doublette
1-3/5 Tierce
IV Scharff
8 Cromorne
Swell to Positive

Swell Man III enc.
16 Bourdon
8 Violin Diapason
8 Voix céleste
8 Flûte traversière
4 Dulciane
4 Flûte octaviante
2 Octavin
IV Plein jeu
16 Bombarde
8 Trompette
8 Hautbois

Pedal
32 Bourdon  RESULTANT
16 Prestant  GREAT
16 Bourdon
8 Octave
8 Violon  SWELL
8 Flûte  SWELL
4 Superoctave
16 Posaune
16 Bombarde  SWELL
8 Trompette  SWELL
Great to Pedal
Positive to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Swell super to Pedal

Tremulants
Balanced Swell Pedal
Crescendo Pedal

Fisk II temperament
Mechanical Key Action
Electric Stop Action
Combination Action

Damin Spritzer is Area Chair and Associate Professor of Organ at the University of Okla­homa and holds degrees from the University of North Texas (DMA), the Eastman School of Music (MM), and the Ober­lin Conservatory (BM). She has performed at historic churches and instruments in Germany, France, Iceland, England, Bra­zil, Is­ra­el, Italy, and Norway, and has performed and lectured for conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, and the Association of Angli­can Musicians.

Of her recordings for Raven, most of which explore little-known repertoire, the previous (seventh) explores organ music composed by Pierre Kunc (1865-1941) of a musical family in Toulouse and eventually maitre de chapelle at Saint-Sulpice in Paris and conservatory professor. Critically well received for the music, it also is praised for the recording of the 1849 John Abbey 3m organ at the Cathedral in Châlons-­en-­Champagne. Her album devoted to original organ compositions by Harvey Grace, the 20th-century British music editor and longtime editor of the musical publication, Musical Times, was recorded on the 1895 T. C. Lewis four-­manual organ at the Albion Church, Ashton-­Under-Lyme, England. Universally positive reviews in the British and American press include Robert Delcamp’s comment in the American Record Guide, “Spritzer is a superb player, whose earlier recordings I have greatly admired. She has a talent for bringing unknown or neglected repertory to life.“

Spritzer’s acclaimed album of turn-­of-­the-­20th-­century works by English composers, Rhapsodies & Elegies, was recorded on the 1892 Henry Willis organ at Hereford Cathedral in England where she was the first American and first woman to record at the cathedral. It received five stars from Organists’ Review whose critic wrote, “Damin Spritzer‘s performance is spellbinding  and her wide-ranging program notes are fascinating… on so many levels this CD impresses as a serious undertaking.“

Alsatian-American composer René Louis Becker (1882-­1956) is the topic of her doctoral research, which led to three recordings of Becker’s music performed in France at St-­Salomon-­St-Gregoire, Pithiviers; the Cathé­drale Ste-Croix, Orléans; and the Kimball organ of St. John’s Cathedral, Denver. The fourth CD, Fantasia, was recorded with trombonist Donald Pinson at St. Monica Catholic Church in Dallas.