In spite of partial blindness, Louis Vierne (1870– 1937) became one of the outstanding French organist-composers of his generation, and in 1900 he was appointed Organist of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, a post he held until his death.
Carillon de Westminster, the final number of the third suite of his
Pièces de fantaisie, dates from around 1927, and its dedication to Henry Willis III more than suggests that extemporization on the great Willis organ at Westminster Cathedral in London was its starting-point. The bell-sounds of the famous Westminster clock-tower are heard against a haze of reed colour, and the central section (in which those sounds are heard on the pedals in their real-life key of B flat major) leads to a blazing, full-organ conclusion which is one of the glories of the repertoire.
from notes by Relf Clark © 2008
