Maurice Durufle: The Man and His Music

Maurice Durufle: The Man and His Music is a new biography of the great French organist and composer (1902-86), and the most comprehensive in any language. James E. Frazier traces Durufle’s musical training, his studies withTournemire and Vierne, and his career as an organist, church musician, composer, recitalist, Conservatoire professor, and orchestral musician. Frazier also examines the career and contributions of Durufle’s wife, the formidable organist Marie-Madeleine Durufle-Chevalier.
Durufle brought the church’s unique language of plainsong into a compelling liaison with the secular harmonies of the modern French school (as typified by Debussy, Ravel, and Dukas)in works for his own instrument and in his widely loved masterpiece, the Requiem Op. 9 for soloists, chorus, organ, and orchestra.
Drawing on the accounts of those who knew Durufle personally as well as on Frazier’s own detailed research, Maurice Durufle offers a broad sketch of this modest and elusive man, widely recognized today for having created some of the greatest works in the organ repertory – and the masterful Requiem.

James E. Frazier holds advanced degrees in philosophy, organ, theology, and sacred music from St. Alphonsus College, Mt. St. Alphonsus Seminary, Hartt School of Music, the Yale University Divinity School, and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He served Episcopal churches in Hartford, Connecticut, and St. Paul, Minnesota, as organist and director of music. For ten years he was director of music for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.