Trenton’s Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is the site of a musical event: the Sunday, March 6, reconstruction of a 1971 performance of 20th century French composer Maurice Durufle’s Requiem at the Trenton cathedral.
That event featured Durufle himself conducting with Marie-Madeleine Durufle — called by the New York Times the last great performer in the French romantic school of organ playing — accompanying her husband.
Durufle (1909-1986) created music informed by both impressionism and traditional liturgical music, including Gregorian chant. The Requiem is considered his best known work and was first performed on French radio on All Souls Day, November 2, 1947, for a national audience.
The Pennington-based Voices Chorale, led by conductor Lyn Ransom, is leading the effort. Also participating as guests are the Princeton High School Chamber Choir, under the direction of Vincent Metallo, and the Absalom Jones Inspirational Choir of Trinity Cathedral, directed by Deborah Ford.
In a telephone interview from her home in Hopewell, Ransom says, “I learned recently of the Durufle performance in 1971 and was inspired to recreate it, and bring back people involved in that performance.” She adds that she was able to track down two of the participants: Bob Parrish and Nancianne Parrella.
Parrish sang bass in the 1971 performance. At the time a voice teacher at Trenton State College (now the College of New Jersey), he was head of its music department. Retired, Parrish is now a choral conductor.
Parrella was the Princeton High School music teacher who trained members of the PHS Choir for the 1971 performance. She is now the associate organist for New York City’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, which celebrated the 23 years of their association in a tribute on November 3.
Ransom shares notes she made after interviewing Parrish and Parrella:
“Durufle was very happy with the performance,” Parrish told Ransom “and didn’t seem to have a strong opinion on how he liked [the Requiem] done, feeling that matching the orchestra to the choir [was] more important than forcing a full orchestra on a too small choir.”
“With the pickup orchestra,” Ransom heard, “there were some rough spots. However, Mme. Durufle knew the piece so well that she was able to recover them and lead the orchestra through those spots. She was an incredible organist.”
“Durufle was reserved, but Madame was a firestorm!” Ransom found out. “He spoke no English and used an interpreter.”
Addressing the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in 2014, Parrella had revealed other Durufle memories of the 1971 performance. “The first half of the concert was a recital by [Durufle and his wife] … an amazing performance … an incredible gift,” Parrella said. “The next day they did a workshop together for Westminster Choir College students and the local American Guild of Organists chapter.”
She also recalled the less successful moments. “In the performance of the Requiem — during the ‘Pie Jesu’ (Merciful Jesus) — one of the high school boys became faint and fell down onto the wooden platform making a loud, resounding sound. The boys on either side caught him and carried him into the sacristy. Madame could see them doing this out of the corner of her vision and said: ‘Mon Dieu — we have performed the Requiem many times but never with a cadaver.’ (The young man was OK).”
Voices, now in its 29th year, performed the Durufle in 1996, and Ransom mentions the virtues of returning to a work. “It’s always thrilling to repeat a masterpiece,” she says. “You approach it at a different level. The Durufle is more full of dramatic contrasts than I remembered. It shakes your bones.”
Born in 1947 into a musical family, Ransom grew up in a musically rich part of Indiana. Her father played violin; her mother, piano; one of her younger siblings played cello; another, violin; violin was her own instrument.
Ransom earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin; master’s degrees from Eastern Michigan University the University of Michigan; and a doctoral degree from Cincinnati College and Conservatory of Music in conducting.
Ransom’s husband is Ken Guilmartin, composer and founder of “Music Together,” a music program designed for children and their parents. It is also based in Pennington.
Ransom’s legal name is “Lynne.” She changed it to “Lyn” following a winning encounter with breast cancer in 2005. Under the guidance of Gerald Epstein, a New York psychiatrist and advocate of mental imagery, she turned to numerology. Calculating the positions in the alphabet of letters in the name “Lynne” and manipulating them according to prescribed patterns, she found that spelling her name “Lyn” gave a more favorable numerological result. “It was the bookend of the process of coming through cancer well,” she says.
Lyn Ransom plans to retire from Voices in 2017 and hopes to play violin and to sing.
Durufle’s Requiem, Trinity Cathedral, 801 West State Street, Trenton. Sunday, March 6, 3 p.m. $25, 609-658-2636 or voiceschorale@gmail.com.
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