The Complete Performance of Charles Tournemire’s “L’Orgue Mystique”
Wed, Feb 17 · 7:00 PM St. John’s Church · Georgetown
In Lent 2027, Washington, DC will play host to a city-wide complete performance of Charles Tournemire’s two-hundred-fifty-three-movement, fifteen-hour-long masterpiece, L’Orgue Mystique, performed at nine churches throughout the city, with two of the seventeen performances taking place in Georgetown at Saint John’s Episcopal Church. Composed between 1927 and 1932, L’Orgue Mystique is one of the most ambitious works in the organ repertoire: a musical journey through the Catholic liturgical year, drawing on Gregorian chant and a distinctly French modernist sound world. Rarely heard in its complete form, the cycle will unfold across seventeen evenings and nine of Washington’s notable church organs. This recital falls within the centenary of the composition of this work and is both a celebration of this masterpiece and is part of Tournemire’s contemporary cultural renaissance. *Georgetown’s two performances will take place on February 17 and March 16
