Suite en Sol

for organ (1987)

It was the discovery of the great works of the organ repertoire that gave Laurent Beeckmans the desire to write something for that instrument. In particular, it is the Organ Concerto by Francis Poulenc that had the strongest influence on the style and the harmonies of this Suite en Sol. There are six movements all in the tonality of g minor:

• Prélude
• Méditation
• Pastorale
• Intermède
• Prière
• Toccata

Incidentally, the shape and character of the six movements is close to Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, a piano suite that the composer practised at that time. As in this work, the second movement was intended to be a fugue, which finally turned out to become a Méditation on a theme by Benjamin Britten (Miles' aria Malo from the opera The Turn of the Screw).

The whole of the work was roughly written in 1987, but endured some revisions in the following years. Finally, it has been given its first performance on November 8th 2002 by Joachim Dorfmüller at the organ of the Dominikanerkirche in Münster, Germany.

Score

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