Born in Liège, Belgium, in 1873, Joseph Jongen showed an outstanding precocity for music from a very early age, and was admitted to the Liège Conservatoire at the extraordinarily young age of seven. He won a First Prize for fugue in 1895 and honors diplomas in piano and organ the next year. In 1897, he won the Belgian Prix de Rome, which allowed him to travel to Italy, Germany, and France, where he experienced the music of Brahms and Richard Strauss, Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel, all of which would exert an influence on the young composer. Although he composed in numerous genres, including the symphony and concerto, as well as chamber music, instrumental pieces, and choral works, it is his output for the organ for which he is now best known.

The Serbian-American pianist Ivan Ilić helps to redress the balance with this new recording of two of Jongen’s substantial sets of Préludes for piano. The 13 Préludes, Op. 69 are expansive in nature and extremely poetic – each bears an evocative title. They are dedicated to Émile Bosquet who gave their première, in 1923. The 24 Petits Préludes dans tous les tons were begun in 1940 and (like Bach’s preludes and fugues) circle through each and every key, major and minor. Arranged in twelve pairs, the minor key following the major on the same tonic note, these works reflect Jongen’s affinity for (and mastery of) their free form, as well as demonstrating his mature compositional style.

REVIEW:

The reputation of Belgian composer, organist, and educator Joseph Jongen (1873-1953) basically rests upon one work, his Symphonie concertante for organ and orchestra. However, he composed prolifically in many genres. His solo piano works fall between Franck’s burnished chromaticism and young Scriabin’s sensuous textures while flirting with Debussy and Ravel. Such a style works best when served up in small doses, such as in the Preludes Op. 69.

Jongen may not be a memorable tunesmith, and his phraseology tends to be square, but his exquisite harmonic sense and idiomatic, well-crafted handling of the keyboard more than compensates. In the Op. 60 group, you have, on one hand, Eau tranquille’s gently persistent double notes that contrast to Appassionato’s hammered-out chords that step right out of the finale of Scriabin’s Third sonata.

The 24 Petits Preludes in all of the major and minor keys are less ambitious technically and more conservative, even academic in style. The purity of the contrapuntal writing in slower pieces like Preludes Nos. 10 and 20 smacks of organ technique, while No. 22’s imitative writing suggests a Passepied from a Bach suite in slightly updated modern dress. The pieces fuse charm and seriousness in equal portions, and say what they need to say without overstaying their welcome.

The music’s workmanship mirrors Ivan Ilić’s caringly detailed interpretations. For example, he shapes No. 18’s cascading patterns into cogent melodic arcs, while imparting subtle shadings of timbre to No. 11’s unassumingly beautiful chords. He scales Op. 69 No. 13’s dynamics with care, ensuring that the motoric build-ups do not get too loud too soon, and thereby generating steady momentum. Tempo choices similarly appear to be judicious.

While one might prefer Diane Andersen’s gaunter and more scintillating reading of Papillons noirs (Op. 69 No. 11) in her complete Jongen piano music cycle for the Pavane label, Ilić’s deliberation better allows you to absorb the harmonic motion, together with extra breathing room for the dancing right-hand triplets. In short, Ilić’s mindful virtuosity serves the music first and foremost throughout this highly recommendable and well-engineered release.

-- ClassicsToday.com

When we think of a concerto for solo instrument and orchestra, the organ is certainly not the first instrument that comes to mind. And yet, the symphonic organ is perfectly adapted to the role of soloist, being capable of duelling as well as duetting with the orchestra. The Concerto for organ, strings, horns and timpani Op. 100 by Marco Enrico Bossi, for example, is one of the most important and successful pieces in the entire repertoire, and yet it does not enjoy the recognition it deserves among the wider public. Structured in three movements of genuine expressive power, this is music that is both majestic and intimate, able to touch the hearts of listeners and performers alike – a work on which this great composer really lavished his extraordinary creativity.

Hymne by Joseph Jongen is a real rarity. The organ has less of a ‘solo’ role than in the Bossi and Poulenc works; rather, it blends into the warm textures of the orchestra as an integral part of the sonic conversational flow so typical of Jongen’s impressionist idiom. Here too, the composition of the Gland organ and its eminently full, warm and poetic sound are an ideal showcase for the mysterious atmosphere of this work.

Unlike the Bossi and Jongen works, the Concerto for organ, strings and timpani by Francis Poulenc is very well known indeed. Uncharacteristically written in a single movement divided into seven sections, this concerto is surely one of the best-known organ works of the 20th century. In certain sections the sonorous, weighty and deliberately strident organ writing is juxtaposed alongside orchestral textures that are extremely graceful and poetic, almost like a rough country giant trying to attract the attentions of a refined princess. At other moments, the organ imposes itself upon the orchestra, only to come together with it at other times, before proceeding to turn everything upside down once again.

The Antwerp cathedral organist Peter Van de Velde gathers almost exclusively world premiere recordings on this new album.

Sebastian Berner is one of the most prominent trumpet players of his generation: in 2022, he won first prize at the Maurice André International Competition in Paris and is principal trumpet of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. While Henri Tomasi's trumpet concerto, composed in 1948, is fairly well known, the Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra, composed in 1913 by the Belgian Joseph Jongen, is much rarer, and the concerto by his pupil Léon Stekke, dated July 1937, is being recorded for the first time. Another world premiere is Charles Koechlin's Chants de Kervéléan, transcribed in 2008 for trumpet and orchestra by Robert Orlidge. Finally, Florent Schmitt's Suite in Three Parts was premiered in it's orchestral version in 1956 by Maurice André.