Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)

 Allegro, molto moderato (in the Dorian mode)

Divertimento (molto vivo)

Molto lento, misterioso

Toccata (moto perpetuo) Allegro moderato

 In music which is king? The organ or the orchestra? Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie concertante proposes less a contest than an alliance. The result, as the title implies, is neither a symphony nor a concerto, but both – one of the most ambitious, successful, and satisfying pieces for organ and orchestra; exciting, too, demanding a mighty instrument and a mighty player.

It will come as no surprise that Jongen was an organist as well as a composer. Indeed, the scale and history of his Symphonie concertante are to be explained by his prowess in both fields. The commission to compose the piece came with the condition that Jongen would give its first performance, not in his native Belgium, but in transatlantic Philadelphia. Jongen’s fame as an organ virtuoso had spread. The commissioner hoped for world fame for the instrument on which the performance would be given.

In 1911 Rodman Wanamaker, owner of a Philadelphia department store that bore his name, had built a major attraction into his store, an enormous organ of 1670 pipes and 455 ranks. It was to inaugurate the restoration of the organ that Jongen was to play his new piece. Just as Jongen was set to travel to Philadelphia in early 1928, his father died and he postponed his trip. Then there were delays in the restoration project, pushing the concert date back to the end of 1928. It was scrapped completely after Wanamaker’s unexpected death in March 1928. Meanwhile Jongen, who had begun the work in 1926, played the premiere in Brussels on February 11, 1928. No wonder he used to refer to his Symphonie concertante as ‘that unfortunate work’.

Jongen’s Belgian nationality helps explain some of the character of the music. Like César Franck before him, Joseph Jongen was born in the Francophone Belgian city of Liège, where his brilliant precocity won him admission to the Conservatoire at the age of seven. His abilities as organist, composer and teacher kept pace with each other. The year before he began his Symphonie concertante, he became director of the Royal Conservatoire in Brussels. The influence of Brahms, Richard Strauss and César Franck on Jongen’s early music is still apparent in the Symphonie concertante; perhaps especially Franck, in the choice of featured instrument and the chromaticism of the harmony. This is very much a work of Jongen’s maturity (his 241 compositions cover the whole range of orchestra, solo, and chamber music). It also reflects the strong pull of the French music of the impressionists, Debussy and Ravel, first revealed in Jongen’s chamber piece Concert à cinq of 1923.

In 1926 terms, this organ and orchestra piece is stylistically up-to-date. Its success was immediately noted by one of Jongen’s few peers among Belgian musicians, his friend the violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe, who suggested the Symphonie concertante might better be called a symphony for two orchestras, since ‘the role you assign to the King of Instruments and its abundant resources…is not limited or restricted; it is clearly a second orchestra that enriches the first.’ Ysaÿe’s comment reliably helps guide listening.

The opening movement pays tribute to two aspects of the organ’s history: the old church modes, and fugue (a subject Jongen taught). Yet the unalerted listener might miss Jongen’s learning, so lively, even sprightly is the material in this combination of fugal exposition and sonata form. Jongen wrote: ‘Unlike many composers who have recourse to fugues at the end of their work, the present composer has introduced a fugue at the very beginning’.

Changing time signatures give almost impish playfulness to the scherzo-like Divertimento, alternating with more sustained, song or even hymn-like passages.

The third and longest movement is the most tinged by impressionism, and the most adventurous in harmony and texture. Organ and orchestra achieve, in Jongen’s words, ‘the best union possible’ with wondrous coloristic effect.

The perpetual motion finale recalls the symphonic toccatas of such organist composers as Widor. Words are inadequate for this delirious music, piling climax on climax in its unceasing spinning motion.

This note was first published in 2015.