MUSIC / DANCE : Durufle to Play Husband’s Work on Crystal Cathedral Organ

The name of composer Maurice Durufle is a familiar one in the Southland, thanks to the frequent performances here of his Requiem, composed in 1947.

Like Gabriel Faure’s Requiem, Durufle’s work seeks to console the bereaved rather than evoke the terrors of the Last Judgment, as do the Berlioz or Verdi works in this genre.

Both Faure and Durufle omit the “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath) sections of the liturgy, and the works are pervaded by a sense of calm.

It is a calm that was all too sadly denied to Durufle himself in his last years. He died in 1986 after years of pain as a result of an automobile crash in 1975. A drunken driver plowed head-on into a car in which Durufle and his wife, concert organist Marie-Madeleine Durufle, were traveling. Durufle was thrown onto the highway, and both his legs were broken. His wife suffered rib and pelvic fractures.

Both recovered slowly. Marie-Madeleine Durufle, now in her early ‘70s, endured more than 20 operations, including a hip replacement as recently as 1987.

She persevered and returned to concertizing, even when it meant struggling up to an organ bench on crutches.

She will play a recital of works by Bach, Handel, Cesar Franck and other composers, including her husband, on Friday at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

The recital is part of the monthlong celebration commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Hazel Wright organ at the facility.

Durufle has chosen to play her husband’s “Prelude and Fugue on the Name ‘Alain’ ” “because I’m particularly fond of it,” she said in French recently, speaking through an interpreter.

Her choices were not that many, considering that Durufle’s output actually was rather small.

“He was terrifically occupied--teaching and giving concerts--and also he was very slow in composing,” she explained. “But also he destroyed a number of works because he felt they were not good enough. He was a perfectionist. He eliminated anything that he thought was not just right. So he ended up with 14 works--(made up of) about 40 pieces altogether--which is not so bad since many composers have not produced even that much.”

The two met in 1946 at the Paris Conservatory, where Durufle was teaching. They were married in 1953, the year she won the Grand Prix in Organ “with honors.” That year she also became co-organist with her husband at the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont, where he had been playing since 1930.

The two toured together for many years, coming to the United States for the first time in 1964. Crystal Cathedral organist Frederick Swann met them that year while he was still organist at the Riverside Church in New York. (Swann came to Orange County in 1982.)

Upon coming to a new facility, Marie-Madeleine Durufle says, she needs to try out a new instrument. “Certain organs have a system of pistons that are difficult to maneuver, and some of them are much easier to play than others,” she said. “The older ones are much more difficult. But I’ve been at this so long, I’ve seen just about everything. I don’t really worry about it much.”

With its 16,412 pipes, the Hazel Wright organ at the Cathedral is billed as the “second largest fully functional organ in the world.” But Marie-Madeleine Durufle isn’t impressed by numbers and the size of the instrument. “The only thing that I care about is the beauty of the sound,” she said.

Who: Organist Marie-Madeleine Durufle.

When: Friday, May 22, at 8:15 p.m.

Where: Crystal Cathedral, 12141 Lewis St., Garden Grove.

Whereabouts: From the Garden Grove (22) Freeway west, take the Haster Street exit, turn right on Haster, continue to Chapman Avenue, turn right. The next stoplight is Lewis Street. Turn right. From the Garden Grove Freeway east, take Harbor Boulevard exit north to Chapman Avenue and turn right. Right on Lewis Street.

Wherewithal: $8.

Where to Call: (714) 971-4150.