Let us have the courage to admit, however, that these resources are only partly utilized as they can or should be.  To draw from a great instrument all its possibilities, to begin with, one must understand it thoroughly, and that understanding cannot be gained over night.  The organ, as we have seen, is a collection of an indefinite number of instruments.  It places before the organist extraordinary means of expressing himself.  No two of these instruments are precisely alike.  The organ is only a theme with innumerable variations, determined by the place in which it is to be installed, by the amount of money at the builder’s disposal, by his inventiveness, and, often, by his personal whims.  As a result time is required for the organist to learn his instrument thoroughly.  After this he is as free as the fish in the sea, and his only preoccupation is the music.  Then, to play freely with the colors on his vast palette, there is but one way—­he must plunge boldly into improvisation.

Now improvisation is the particular glory of the French school, but it has been injured seriously of late by the influence of the German school.  Under the pretext that an improvisation is not so good as one of Sebastian Bach’s or Mendelssohn’s masterpieces, young organists have stopped improvising.

That point of view is harmful because it is absolutely false; it is simply the negation of eloquence.  Consider what the legislative hall, the lecture room and the court would be like if nothing but set pieces were delivered.  We are familiar with the fact that many an orator and lawyer, who is brilliant when he talks, becomes dry as dust when he tries to write.  The same thing happens in music.  Lefebure-Wely was a wonderful improviser (I can say this emphatically, for I heard him) but he left only a few unimportant compositions for the organ.  I might also name some of my contemporaries who express themselves completely only through their improvisations.  The organ is thought-provoking.  As one touches the organ, the imagination is awakened, and the unforeseen rises from the depths of the unconscious.  It is a world of its own, ever new, which will never be seen again, and which comes out of the darkness, as an enchanted island comes from the sea.

Instead of this fairyland, we too often see only some of Sebastian Bach’s or Mendelssohn’s pieces repeated continuously.  The pieces themselves are very fine, but they belong to concerts and are entirely out of place in church services.  Furthermore, they were written for old instruments and they apply either not at all, or badly, to the modern organ.  Yet there are those who think this belief spells progress.