La Nativité du Seigneur (The Nativity of the Lord)

Dieu parmi nous closes the nine meditations. Messiaen printed three scriptural passages above it, including “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”, and paired it with the seventh piece as the living, sorrowing God in our midst.

The organ was built by Walcker in 1857–⁠62. It stood in the Boston Music Hall from 1863 to 1884 and was heard in Methuen’s Memorial Hall from 1909. G. Donald Harrison of Aeolian-⁠Skinner redesigned it, and the recording used the rebuilt instrument.

The organ becomes much louder here and stays loud, apart from short dips, to the end of the piece.

Ernest White was born in Canada and went to the United States in 1925 to study the organ with Lynnwood Farnam. He became musical director of the Church of St Mary the Virgin in New York.

The sleeve says the recording was made in August 1949 under the engineering supervision of H. Vose Greenough. Mercury issued it as MG 10069 at $4.85, and The American Organist reviewed it in October 1952.

Messiaen wrote La Nativité in 1935, in Grenoble, at the age of twenty-six. His preface to the score begins: “Emotion and sincerity above all!”

Three organists shared the first performance at La Trinité on 27 February 1936: Daniel-⁠Lesur played pieces 1–⁠3, Jean Langlais 4–⁠6 and Jean-⁠Jacques Grunenwald 7–⁠9, which include this one. Leduc published piece 9 alone as the fourth book.

The American Organist called the cycle “difficult-to-play and difficult-to-enjoy” but said White’s performance should satisfy admirers of the work. Mildred Andrews of the University of Oklahoma, quoted in American Music Teacher, called him “a musical architect of real genius”.