Pietro Alessandro Yon (1886-1943)
Concerto grégorien pour orgue seul en la mineur
Cristo Trionfante
Hymn of Glory
Dies es laetitae
Pastorale Sorrentina
Pastorale
Natale in Sicilia
Première suite religieuse pour l'Avent
Pastorale "Gesù Bambino"

Tommaso Mazzoletti, orgue

Béni des hiérarchies ecclésiastiques (il reçut le titre honorifique d'organiste titulaire du Vatican en 1922), Pietro Alessandro Yon (1886-1943) fut préempté à l'âge de 21 ans pour tenir l'orgue de la St Francis Xavier Church de Manhattan avant d'accéder en 1928 au poste de directeur musical de la cathédrale St Patrick de New-York. C'est dans le cadre de ses activités liturgiques qu'il convient d'apprécier une musique qui, esthétiquement, pourrait passer pour vulgaire. Le premier cd propose le 'Concerto Gregoriano' dans sa version pour orgue solo et deux pièces liées au temps pascal; le second est consacré au temps de l'Avent et de Noël. Yon connaît ses mélodies grégoriennes qu'il utilise pour entraîner les foules. Il procède par oppositions et fusions de plans sur fond de mélodies facilement reconnaissables. Aux commandes de l'orgue Brondino Vegezzi-Bossi (2021) de L'église protestante réformée de Gland (Suisse), Tommaso Mazzoletti s'en donne à coeur joie. Cloches tubulaires au positif, au grand-orgue, au récit expressif et à la pédale sont à même de combler le péché mignon du compositeur. La prise de son d'une clarté magistrale qui ne sature jamais achève de rendre cette musique diablement efficace. (Michel Lorentz-Alibert)

A New York Times profile of Pietro Yon (1886-1943) portrayed him as an adopted New Yorker who moved in high-society circles and enjoyed ragtime and vaudeville, and he welcomed the likes of Caruso and Toscanini to his home as friends. When he died in 1943, the world-famous conductor numbered among the 1300 mourners at St Patrick’s, where the Italian émigré Yon had become director of music in 1929. Yon’s music has a post-Romantic, mid-Atlantic flavour reflecting his background without belonging to a single ‘school’. He composed over 70 Mass settings and major works, including the oratorio The Triumph of St. Patrick which premiered at Carnegie Hall. Among his most popular works at the time was a Concerto Gregoriano for organ and orchestra, later rearranged for organ and piano and then solo organ, in which version Tommaso Mazzoletti performs it here. CD1 concludes with a pair of Easter-themed works, while CD2 features Christmas music including an Advent Suite, some gentle pastorales and finally the Gesù Bambino song which travelled the world in performances and recordings by Luciano Pavarotti, as well as countless other arrangements such as the solo-organ version played here. This album marks the climax of a seven-year project in which the Italian organist Tommaso Mazzoletti has become the world’s foremost exponent of his countryman’s music. As Mazzoletti remarks in his booklet essay, Yon knew exactly what his audiences enjoyed, and was prepared to experiment, rediscover and astonish. ‘As a performer and composer who played the organ for concerts as well as church services, he had the flair of an entrepreneur and a personality that I have always found to be particularly appealing. All his compositions are highly refined, but also imbued with a poetic, melancholy vein. Yet for all the skill and creativity that they unquestionably reveal, there is also a touch of humour that is utterly engaging.’ This album was recorded on a new organ by the Brondino Vegezzi-Bossi firm, installed at St.Paul protestant church in Gland, Switzerland and inaugurated in 2021 by Mazzoletti as the church’s titular organist. The booklet also includes a full specification and photographs of the organ.