The organ symphonies of Louis Vierne

Louis Vierne stood in an exceedingly favorable position in the matter of the influences which were at work upon him. Though he profited immeasurably by his study with both Widor and Guilmant, he himself possessed an advantage which was not given to either of these two men. For almost two years Vierne was in the organ-class of César Franck; and in that time he was able to add his own share to the almost legendary love, respect, and admiration that Franck's students bore him. There are, in fact, many points of similarity between the careers of Franck and of Vierne. Each spent a goodly portion of his life in the service of the church: Franck at Ste. Clothilde, Vierne at Notre-Dame. Each man devoted his entire life to music; each was a devout believer with a keen sense for beauty and the creation of it; both were superb improvisers; the students of both were avid disciples of their masters; both suffered the results of intrigue at the hands of others, and both had the necessary fortitude to rise above their troubles, taking refuge in their art. As the assistant and close friend of both Wider and Guilmant, Vierne came to know the esthetic creed of each artist in an intimate fashion. Vierne modeled his own compositions upon the general lines of the work of these two men. With the added impetus and the inspiration that came to him through his contact with Franck, be was able to advance in scope, in grandeur, and in emotional content to that point which places his works in the forefront of modern organ composition. Vierne was perhaps more fortunate than bis contemporaries, for he was able to profit greatly by bis association both with Franck and with Wider and Guilmant. His greater point of advantage lay in the fact that he was in such close personal relationship with the latter two men. Vierne had the inestimable advantage of an ability to produce a long melodic line, the intensity of which he was able to modify at will. The short-breathed phrases of Franck do not appear in the work of his student. Vierne used a widely-varied phraseology. In countless movements the phrase organization is quite regular, with perfect balance of periods. In other instances, there are phrases of all degrees of length and of very odd balance. He possessed a fine ability for the building of tremendous climaxes. In this connection must be mentioned his use of chain-phrases and his intriguing manner of extending phrases so that the moment of cadence of resolution is delayed, to the end that climaxes seem more impressive by reason of their delayed entrances. One device in particular contributes to his ability for constructing a stunning climax. The ostinato, the effectiveness of which he may have learned from Widor's use of it in the Toccata of the Fifth Symphony, is used with carillon-like results in many movements in which the effect is gained almost by monotony--much in the manner of Ravel's Bolero. It is true that Vierne exhausted nearly all of the contrapuntal and harmonic devices in the course of writing his symphonies. It is possible that many of these tricks of the musician's trade will remain to be appreciated only by those who have the knowledge and the will to examine the scores themselves. Vierne's use of cyclic construction seems for the most part to be valuable in its strictest sense only to the practiced organist. The paces of the movements where there is identity of thematic material are usually too slow or too rapid to afford the unaided ear any opportunity of grasping the essential cyclic meaning. It remains for the eye to appreciate the tremendously skilful manipulation of the themes. There seems to be no excellence of one type of writing over another in Vierne's work, unless it be in his writing of scherzi. Some of the most charming pages) of the symphonies are to be found in these swift, light-footed movements. The grandeur of some of the dramatic passages is notable. Especially to be commended is the jagged, Gothiclike beginning of the Second Symphony, and the final summing up of the themes which occurs at the end of the first movement. The succeeding Choral and the Romance of the Fourth Symphony contain passages of lyrical loveliness. The training of Franck appears nowhere more noticeably than in the Fourth Symphony with its extreme chromatic style, unless it be in the last two symphonies with their cyclical structure. To Widor's influence can be credited the use of the symphonic form itself, as well as the tremendously difficult passages with which some of the symphonies are filled. It is possible that these bristling technical difficulties would never have been written had it not been for the thorough schooling in organ technique that Vierne received at the hands of Widor. The purist may be comforted by the fact that Vierne’s symphonic writing comes closer to the classical ideal than does that of Widor. The variety and unity achieved by Vierne in the symphonies is not far removed from that demanded by the thorough-going classicist. Vierne has truly built upon the foundation provided by the Widor symphonies, and his own personal manner of expression has given his work an individuality and a breadth of vision that are lacking in the Widor works. The organ symphonies of Louis Vierne represent a substantial and valuable contribution to modern organ literature because of their own intrinsic value; because they are the well-considered works of one of the preeminent members of the modern French organ school, and because they represent the vision and the work of an organist directly descended through one of the finest lines of schooling. As for their permanence in the repertoire, it remains for time and for capable organists to say.--Conclusion

Day 1: Wednesday, 17 August 2005: Biodiversity and Critical Habitat

6 pages (includes color illustration). Contains references

Draft Genome Sequences of Six Novel Bacterial Isolates from Chicken Ceca

The chicken is the most common domesticated animal and the most abundant bird in the world. However, the chicken gut is home to many previously uncharacterized bacterial taxa. Here, we report draft genome sequences from six bacterial isolates from chicken ceca, all of which fall outside any named species

Viral factors in influenza pandemic risk assessment

The threat of an influenza A virus pandemic stems from continual virus spillovers from reservoir species, a tiny fraction of which spark sustained transmission in humans. To date, no pandemic emergence of a new influenza strain has been preceded by detection of a closely related precursor in an animal or human. Nonetheless, influenza surveillance efforts are expanding, prompting a need for tools to assess the pandemic risk posed by a detected virus. The goal would be to use genetic sequence and/or biological assays of viral traits to identify those non-human influenza viruses with the greatest risk of evolving into pandemic threats, and/or to understand drivers of such evolution, to prioritize pandemic prevention or response measures. We describe such efforts, identify progress and ongoing challenges, and discuss three specific traits of influenza viruses (hemagglutinin receptor binding specificity, hemagglutinin pH of activation, and polymerase complex efficiency) that contribute to pandemic risk

Snapshots during the catalytic cycle of a histidine acid phytase reveal an induced fit structural mechanism

Highly engineered phytases, which sequentially hydrolyze the hexakisphosphate ester of inositol known as phytic acid, are routinely added to the feeds of monogastric animals to improve phosphate bioavailability. New phytases are sought as starting points to further optimize the rate and extent of dephosphorylation of phytate in the animal digestive tract. Multiple inositol polyphosphate phosphatases (MINPPs) are clade 2 histidine phosphatases (HP2P) able to carry out the stepwise hydrolysis of phytate. MINPPs are not restricted by a strong positional specificity making them attractive targets for development as feed enzymes. Here, we describe the characterization of a MINPP from the Gram-positive bacterium Bifidobacterium longum (BlMINPP). BlMINPP has a typical HP2P-fold but, unusually, possesses a large a-domain polypeptide insertion relative to other MINPPs. This insertion, termed the U-loop, spans the active site and contributes to substrate specificity pockets underpopulated in other HP2Ps. Mutagenesis of U-loop residues reveals its contribution to enzyme kinetics and thermostability. Moreover, four crystal structures of the protein along the catalytic cycle capture, for the first time in an HP2P, a large ligand-driven a-domain motion essential to allow substrate access to the active site. This motion recruits residues both downstream of a molecular hinge and on the U-loop to participate in specificity subsites, and mutagenesis identified a mobile lysine residue as a key determinant of positional specificity of the enzyme. Taken together, these data provide important new insights to the factors determining stability, substrate recognition, and the structural mechanism of hydrolysis in this industrially important group of enzymes

Accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative: Efficacy of TiO2 as digestibility index marker for poultry nutrition studies

Inert digestibility index markers such as titanium dioxide are universally accepted to provide simple measurement of digestive tract retention and relative digestibility in poultry feeding trials. Their use underpins industry practice: specifically dosing regimens for adjunct enzymes added to animal feed. Among these, phytases, enzymes that degrade dietary phytate, inositol hexakisphosphate, represent a billion-dollar sector in an industry that raises ca. 70 billion chickens/annum. Unbeknown to the feed enzyme sector, is the growth in cell biology of use of titanium dioxide for enrichment of inositol phosphates from extracts of cells and tissues. The adoption of titanium dioxide in cell biology arises from its affinity under acid conditions for phosphates, suggesting that in feeding trial contexts that target phytate degradation this marker may not be as inert as assumed. We show that feed grade titanium dioxide enriches a mixed population of higher and lower inositol phosphates from acid solutions. Additionally, we compared the extractable inositol phosphates in gizzard and ileal digesta of 21day old male Ross 308 broilers fed three phytase doses (0, 500 and 6000 FTU/kg feed) and one inositol dose (2g/kg feed). This experiment was performed with or without titanium dioxide added as a digestibility index marker at a level of 0.5%, with all diets fed for 21 days. Analysis yielded no significant difference in effect of phytase inclusion in the presence or absence of titanium dioxide. Thus, despite the utility of titanium dioxide for recovery of inositol phosphates from biological samples, it seems that its use as an inert marker in digestibility trials is justified—as its inclusion in mash diets does not interfere with the recovery of inositol phosphates from digesta samples

H\'enon maps: a list of open problems

We propose a set of questions on the dynamics of H\'enon maps from the real, complex, algebraic and arithmetic points of view.Comment: 34 pages, 4 figure

Delivery of drinking, eating and mobilising (DrEaMing) and its association with length of hospital stay after major noncardiac surgery: observational cohort study

BACKGROUND: Enhanced recovery pathways are associated with improved postoperative outcomes. However, as enhanced recovery pathways have become more complex and varied, compliance has reduced. The ‘DrEaMing’ bundle re-prioritises early postoperative delivery of drinking, eating, and mobilising. We investigated relationships between DrEaMing compliance, postoperative hospital length of stay (LOS), and complications in a prospective multicentre major surgical cohort. METHODS: We interrogated the UK Perioperative Quality Improvement Programme dataset. Analyses were conducted in four stages. In an exploratory cohort, we identified independent predictors of DrEaMing. We quantified the association between delivery of DrEaMing (and its component variables) and prolonged LOS in a homogenous colorectal subgroup and assessed generalisability in multispecialty patients. Finally, LOS and complications were compared across hospitals, stratified by DrEaMing compliance. RESULTS: The exploratory cohort comprised 22 218 records, the colorectal subgroup 7230, and the multispecialty subgroup 5713. DrEaMing compliance was 59% (13 112 patients), 60% (4341 patients), and 60% (3421), respectively, but varied substantially between hospitals. Delivery of DrEaMing predicted reduced odds of prolonged LOS in colorectal (odds ratio 0.51 [0.43–0.59], P<0.001) and multispecialty cohorts (odds ratio 0.47 [0.41–0.53], P<0.001). At the hospital level, complications were not the primary determinant of LOS after colorectal surgery, but consistent delivery of DrEaMing was associated with significantly shorter LOS. CONCLUSIONS: Delivery of bundled and unbundled DrEaMing was associated with substantial reductions in postoperative LOS, independent of the effects of confounder variables. Consistency of process delivery, and not complications, predicted shorter hospital-level LOS. DrEaMing may be adopted by perioperative health systems as a quality metric to support improved patient outcomes and reduced LOS