One of several starry celebrants to inaugurate Paris's first concert organ (moved since to the Auditorium Maurice Ravel in Lyon), Widor premiered No 6, billed as '5me Symphonie', at the Palais du Trocadéro, 24 August 1878. 'The performing talent of this artist […] is of the most brilliant sort. M[onsieur] Widor is skilled in execution, and there is scarcely a difficulty that stops him,' admired the Revue et Gazette. The B major Adagio and feathered, taloned staccato Intermezzo (G minor/E-flat) particularly impressed. The one for its 'gracious' character and 'descending semitones' recalling Wagner; the other for its 'brilliant' manner, albeit 'written rather for the piano than for the organ'. What was thought of the tonally remote D flat major Cantabile, with its quartet-like texture and balanced part-writing, is not recorded. The work follows a quinque-partite plan, imposing 'sonata' powered columns enclosing a gentler quasi-Brahmsian tapestry—architecture versus cameo. These flanking movements, in rhetorical minor and exultant major respectively, traverse Jovian vistas, Widor contesting, dramatising and 'orchestrating' ideas with all the skill, splendour and fff voice of a rampant field commander. Not for small places or shy instruments.

from notes by Ateş Orga © 2019