Charles Tournemire was regarded as an uncompromising champion of an ideal that was unique in the French organ music of his time: music that did not serve the glorification of God he considered useless. His pupil Maurice Duruflé described him as a man who could switch without transition from gentleness to rage. Thus Brother Jakob Schwinde O.Cist. opens his essay in the booklet. Tournemire was a frequent guest at the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes, the centre of the revival of Gregorian chant; from 1927 to 1932 he often worked on L’Orgue Mystique in his small stone windmill on the island of Ouessant. The 51 offices of the cycle are organ Masses of five movements each, from Prélude à l’Introït to Pièce terminale, on the chants of a Sunday or feast day.
Office No. 49 (XXIe Dimanche après la Pentecôte), dated 13 January 1932, tells, according to Schwinde, of Job. Even the Prélude à l’Introït, a profession of God’s power, is underlaid with dissonances, and the Offertoire is a dense short biography of Job; the Elévation casts the servant’s plea for patience from the Gospel of the day as an extremely simple dialogue of two voices. The serious Fugue at the end refers to the Gradual “Lord, thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation”, for Schwinde a “procession through the ages”. In Office No. 44 (XVIIe Dimanche après la Pentecôte), dated 18 November 1931, it is the prophet Daniel in the Babylonian exile: in the Elévation the Voix humaine sings the cantus and the piece ends on an open chord, while the Choral Alleluiatique N°. 2 combines rondo and sonata form in a vision of Jerusalem’s future.
Office No. 21 (IVe Dimanche après Pâques), dated 14 June 1930 and from the Cycle de Pâques Op. 56, is devoted to Paul and his words that death has no more dominion over the risen Christ. The Fresque Alleluiatique begins with a bass ostinato like an approaching procession and, with polytonal means, becomes a kind of mocking song on death; three bars before the end it seems to close in C sharp minor before being turned to major via the tritone. Office No. 38 (XIIe Dimanche après la Pentecôte), dated 2 May 1931, revolves around Moses, whose intercession for his people forms the text of the Offertory; Tournemire sets it in two independent sections, a gesture of rebellion and despair followed by the prayer of Moses. In the Choral N°. 3 Tournemire links the Gradual “I will bless the Lord at all times” with experiences on Ouessant – waves, circling gulls and the sails of his windmill, whose changing speed is traced by the prescribed changes of tempo.
Sandro R. Müller recorded the fourth volume from 20 to 23 July 1995 on the large Rieger organ of 1969/70 at the Cistercian Abbey of Marienstatt; Brother Jakob Schwinde assisted with the stops. The booklet also reproduces the score of the Elévation from Office No. 38 with Tournemire’s registrations.