Quiet Virtuoso in the Cathedral

In April 1960, a delivery van from the organ-building firm Georges Haupt in Lintgen pulled up outside the Bernard-Kaufman House on Rue de l’Athénée. Unloaded was a chamber organ, specially crafted for the renowned cathedral organist Albert Leblanc.

The instrument was a gift from a group of his students and friends, funded by donations from over 200 well-wishers. Leblanc affectionately named his chamber organ the “Little Haupt”, distinguishing it from the “Great Haupt”, the grand cathedral organ, also built by Georges Haupt, a former employee of the Aachen-based firm Stahlhut, and completed in 1938.

When the position of cathedral organist became vacant in 1926 following the death of Jean-Pierre Beicht, Albert Leblanc, a native of Sprimont in Belgium, won over the jury with his vast repertoire and virtuosity. For sixty years, he served the cathedral “provisionally”, as permanent appointments were not then granted to organists. His duties included playing the 9.00 weekday Mass and the hourly Sunday services from 6.00 to noon. He performed at every major historical event, such as the return of Grand Duchess Charlotte from exile on 15 April 1945, where his Paraphrase sur le Wilhelmus, an organ prelude to the national anthem, was heard for the first time. He also subtly wove phrases from Ons Heemecht into his improvisations during the Nazi occupation. Over the years, he composed numerous works that remain staples of Luxembourg’s sacred repertoire, including the Toccata Klagt in Leid for Octave, O salutaris hostia, Domine salvam fac, and Messe en l’honneur de Notre-Dame de Luxembourg.

Leblanc had little interest in a career as a concert organist. A deeply religious and modest man, he found fulfilment in liturgical playing and the organ’s role within Mass and church services. The fact that he nevertheless became internationally renowned is down to Radio Luxembourg. The station broadcast as a commercial private broadcaster on medium and long wave, which, according to the European frequency plan (under which each country limits its coverage to its national borders), it was not actually entitled to do. As a result, as early as the 1930s, people throughout the region between Germany, France and the United Kingdom could listen to Leblanc playing his organ on the radio. His significance grew after the Second World War. When retreating Nazis destroyed the radio archives and seized recording equipment (and the radio orchestra had not yet been re-established to provide entertainment), Leblanc’s cathedral organ music was transmitted live via telephone line to Villa Louvigny’s studio and broadcast directly.

In Paris, the French organist and composer Marcel Dupré tuned in to these broadcasts and was so impressed that, during his 1935 trip to inaugurate the cathedral organ of Verdun, he detoured to Luxembourg to meet the Notre-Dame organist in person. Dupré returned in 1950 to give a recital in the cathedral.

Beyond his church duties, Leblanc devoted himself to teaching generations of students. Few organists in Luxembourg today are not former pupils of his – or pupils of his pupils. Early students like Mathieu Lamberty, Pierre Nimax Sr., and Pierre Drauth studied not only organ but also piano and harmony with him. Leblanc charged modest fees, often waiving them entirely if students could not afford them. Lessons took place at his home piano, the grand symphonic organ in the cathedral, or smaller organs elsewhere. Adaptable to each student’s level, availability, and access to organs, Leblanc tailored his instruction accordingly.

Before electric wind systems, organ practice was laborious. Leblanc recalled his boyhood in Bastogne, where he could not afford a calcant (bellows operator) to pump air for him. Instead, he would manually pump the bellows, play briefly until the air ran out, then rush back to repeat the process. At Notre-Dame, calcants were still used until 1929, when the second organ, located on the rear gallery, was fitted with pneumatic action and an electric blower, while retaining its mechanical wind supply. This proved crucial during the Liberation Mass on 10 September 1944, when a power outage left the cathedral without electricity.

In 1954, Leblanc took up a post as organ instructor (chargé de cours) at the capital’s Conservatoire. However, the rigid structure imposed by the Commission de surveillance – fixed schedules in designated rooms – clashed with his flexible teaching philosophy. After years of conflict, documented in his surviving letters, he resigned in 1960, stating: “[L]es conditions données ne me permettent plus de continuer mes fonctions.” Along with the Maître, many students also left the Conservatoire, as can be seen from a letter to the city’s aldermen – a sign of how closely they were bonded with their teacher and mentor.

It is likely that his resignation coincided with the delivery of the chamber organ. For a decade, students once again gathered at his home on Rue de l’Athénée. But in 1970, demolition crews arrived: the Bernard-Kaufman House was slated for destruction under 1970s urban modernisation. Leblanc relocated his instruments, and himself, just metres away, above the Café des Casemates. When that building, too, fell to redevelopment, he moved in 1976 to his final home: a spacious flat near the Théâtre des Capucins (15, Place du Théâtre). Some of his last students, Patrick Colombo, Pierre Nimax Jr., Alain Wirth, and Michèle Kerschenmeyer, recalled lessons in his three-room apartment, where the chamber organ shared space with an electronic organ and two pianos. Leblanc could teach up to three students simultaneously, each practising in a separate room while the Maître moved between them. They also remembered running errands for him in his later years, as climbing the stairs to his flat had become difficult.

The “Cercle des amis et élèves de Maître Albert Leblanc” celebrated Leblanc’s 80^th birthday by publishing a collection of his compositions: Albert Leblanc – pièces pour orgue. A group of students (Charles Kerschenmeyer, Roger Weimerskirch, Paul Ulveling, Paul Lenert, and others), with his blessing, sorted through his largely unpublished organ manuscripts. A rewarding task for future generations, as many of his manuscripts contain neither titles nor page numbers, and some survive only in fragments. Leblanc, ever modest, had never “prepared” his works for posterity. The processing of his legacy, which the “Association pour le 100^e anniversaire de la naissance d’Albert Leblanc” handed over to the Cedom at the National Library in 2026, was also carried out on the basis of this preliminary sorting. To mark the 100^th anniversary of his birth, a CD box set was released featuring historical recordings by Leblanc made between 1945 and 1983.

Albert Leblanc continued playing the “Great Haupt” in the cathedral until autumn 1986. He died on 6 February 1987 at Sacré-Cœur Hospital and was buried in the family plot in Longlier, near Neufchâteau (Belgium).

He had wished for his “Little Haupt” to be placed on the gallery of the Glacis Chapel, but structural and spatial constraints made this impossible. Initially stored under the cathedral’s forecourt, it deteriorated – crushed under its own weight and damaged by the elements – until it became more of a burden than a treasure. Eventually, thanks to former student Serge Tani, it found a new home in his private residence in Moutfort. In 1999, Tani commissioned the English organ builder Peter Wood & Son to construct a new instrument, incorporating the well-preserved parts of Albert Leblanc’s original “Little Haupt”.

After Leblanc’s death, Carlo Hommel took over playing the “Great Haupt”, which was restored and expanded in 2022 by the Austrian firm Rieger. Since 2006, Paul Breisch has served as titular organist at Notre-Dame Cathedral.

This article was originally published in German. The English version was translated using AI and reviewed by the author.