FROM PARIS TO KILCULLEN: A VISIT BY AN ORGAN LEGEND

Felix Roth, Daniel Roth, Peter Moloney.

Last month, thanks to local organ enthusiast and musician, Peter Moloney, Kilcullen briefly hosted an international celebrity, a world-renowned musician, and an octogenarian of extraordinary distinction all in one person.

Travelling from Paris, Daniel Roth (84), one of the most celebrated organists of the modern era, stopped off to visit Peter while on his way to Tullamore to perform on the renowned Frobenius organ in the Church of the Assumption there. Accompanying him was his grandson, Felix Roth, principal horn player with the Chamber Orchestra of Paris. 

The elder Roth is Titular Organist Emeritus at the Church of St-Sulpice in Paris, where the celebrated Cavaillé-Coll/Clicquot organ attracts musicians and visitors from across the globe. Daniel Roth's artistry at its console has inspired generations of performers and audiences alike. During numerous visits to Saint-Sulpice, Peter had the opportunity to meet Roth and experience firsthand the unique musical culture of the famous church. Conversations that began in Paris led to an invitation to Ireland. 

Peter Moloney at the console of the organ at St Sulpice, Paris.

Born in Mulhouse, France, Daniel Roth has enjoyed an international career spanning more than six decades. His teachers included two towering figures of twentieth-century organ music, Maurice Duruflé and Marie-Claire Alain. From 1985 until his retirement in 2023, he served as Titular Organist of Saint-Sulpice, succeeding a distinguished line of musicians that included Charles-Marie Widor, Marcel Dupré, and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald.

The Tullamore organ he came to Ireland to play was built in 1965 by the renowned Danish firm Frobenius & Sønner for Copenhagen's Cathedral Church of Our Lady. It found a new home in Ireland three decades later when the Danish cathedral commissioned a larger instrument. Through the efforts of Professor Gerard Gillen, then the Titular Organist of St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, and now Professor Emeritus in Music at Maynooth University, and others, the organ was gifted to Tullamore Parish. It was carefully dismantled, transported to Ireland, and rebuilt in its new setting. Inaugurated in 1995, it boasts 53 speaking stops, three manuals, and almost 4,000 pipes. It is the largest mechanical-action church organ in Ireland and the country's only Frobenius organ.

Daniel Roth's appearance in Tullamore was one of Europe's most distinguished organists performing on one of Ireland's most significant musical instruments. Before that, over the brief time of a dinner at the Moloney home, the road from Saint-Sulpice to Tullamore passed through Kilcullen.

Video above: Daniel Roth and Felix Roth perform an interpretation of Danny Boy in Tullamore.

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