Andante sostenuto from "Symphonie Gothique" - C. M. Widor

David Macfarlane, organist
Hauptwerk Virtual Organ: Organ of the St. Etienne Abbey in Caen, Cavaille-Coll (1882)

Written in 1895, Widor's Symphonie Gothique was based on the liturgical theme “Puer natus est nobis” (Unto us a child is born), and inspired by the magnificent Gothic
basilica of Saint-Ouen at Rouen, France. This symphony is the ninth among Widor’s symphonies, and was reportedly his favorite. He frequently played selections from it on All Saints Day at Saint-Sulpice, where he was organist. Opera lovers know this church as the locale where the ingenue Manon Lescaut overwhelms Des Grieux, persuading him to renounce his holy orders in Massenet’s Manon. The Andante sostenuto was considered by Widor’s student Albert Riemenschneider, as well as French organist Marcel Dupré, as a piece that evoked the serenity of the church’s interior. Riemenschneider wrote in a program note that the Andante sostenutowas a “rare movement with a spiritual content so chaste and
pure that involuntarily the atmosphere of prayer and incense suggests itself.”