The first edition of Festivo with Jean Guillou was published on December 14, 1978: ‘Jean Guillou in Concert I’. Before that, Guillou was at Philips, where, for example, his epic improvisations about the moon landing were published (Visions Cosmiques), but Philips was no longer interested in publishing organ music in the 1970s. The same applied to Herman van Vliet, who therefore decided to take matters into his own hands and started publishing LPs with Festivo from 1971.
Below is Jean Guillou’s discography on Festivo with the date of release. Bert den Hertog has written an extensive explanation about these recordings.

1. Festivo Criterium 501: Jean Guillou in Concert 1 – 14 december 1978
2. Festivo Criterium 502: Jean Guillou in Concert 2 – 26 juli 1979
3. Festivo Criterium 503: Jean Guillou in Concert 3 – 24 juni 1980
4. Festivo Criterium 504: Liszt by Jean Guillou – 6 april 1981
5. Festivo Criterium 505: Jean Guillou St Bavo Haarlem – 29 juli 1981 (recording date 29-11-1980)
6. Festivo Criterium 506: Dupré par/by Jean Guillou – 19 november 1981
7. Festivo Criterium 507: Das Musikalische Opfer 30 juli 1982 (recording date 1-12-1980 incl Trumpet Tune Purcell for 505)

After the release of ‘Das Musicalische Opfer’ there was mutual reflection on the sequel. The Netherlands was heading for a recession that the first Lubbers cabinet had to deal with in 1982. In addition, the impression was created that Festivo was a large company with its many productions. Various LPs had also been released with Michelle Leclerc and Daniël Roth and other organists, including Herman van Vliet himself, who caused a sensation on January 5, 1982 with an LP entirely devoted to unreleased music by J.G. Bastiaans, the Dutch Mendelssohn. But despite the many LPs that were released (and later CDs), Festivo has always consisted of two people: Herman van Vliet and his wife Lieke, who were always in direct contact with everyone who contributed, from the artist to the photographer, from lyricist to busier and, where possible, took care of this themselves. This allowed the quality to be high with modest quantities.

However, Jean Guillou had plans to record a complete Bach, which put an end to the collaboration between Festivo and Jean Guillou. This also had consequences for the activities of the foundation for the promotion of organ art, which was without an important pacesetter. In addition, the foundation was increasingly unable to rely on an important crowd puller for the other concerts, namely Feike Asma (1912-1984). This meant that no major tours were organized with Guillou from 1983 onwards. However, he continued to visit the Netherlands regularly to give a concert, for example on the Van den Heuvel organ in Katwijk, which was completed in 1983. That led to the construction of the organ in St. Eustache.
You can also view a number of programs from later years on this site.

Jean Guillou’s first concert in the Netherlands was in the Concertgebouw in 1970. Herman van Vliet probably attended this, because he kept the program, you can find it here. In the following years, Guillou occasionally performed in the Netherlands, but the highlight of his Dutch period was between 1978 and 1983 when he toured the major city organs. These concert series were organized by the Foundation for the Promotion of Organ Art. Its chairman was Jan de Bruijn, a childhood friend of Herman van Vliet. This foundation had existed for some time and had contributed to Herman van Vliet’s fame in the Netherlands and had also organized a concert with Guillou: on September 24, 1976 in the St Bavo in Haarlem and in 1977 in the Rotterdam concert hall ‘De Doelen’. The theme for the improvisation with which Guillou often closed his concerts was provided by Feike Asma for the 1976 concert and has been preserved in the archive.
So in the year ’78 a real tour was organised, consisting of six concerts in eight days, across the country. A selection of the live recordings from this tour was released by Festivo on an LP that was promptly named ‘Record of the Year’ in the United Kingdom, after which two more LPs were released with live recordings of concerts from these tours. Read more about this in Bert den Hertog’s contribution on this site.
Eight concerts were organized in ’79 and six again in ’80 and ’81. The last tour organized by the Foundation for the Promotion of Organ Art in ’82 consisted of five concerts.
Below you will find the program booklets and flyers of the concert tours from ’78 to ’82

Material and programs of other concerts:

Here you can find a series of reviews that Herman van Vliet has collected. This concerns reviews of Festivo publications at home and abroad and of concerts that Guillou gave in the Netherlands.
The exuberant text announcing the tours prompted the famous columnist Bert Klei to write a very witty column in the newspaper Trouw in which he lovingly pokes fun at this enthusiasm in an inimitable way.

In the reviews of the concerts in particular, the struggle among some reviewers is noticeable after so many years. The virtuosity was always beyond doubt, although flawless playing was not a goal for Guillou, and Guillou could not be found lacking in vision, artistry or musicality either, but oh well…

You can read in the reviews what impact Guillou had on the listeners at the time!

Herman van Vliet’s archive contains a number of live recordings of Guillou on Dutch organs. For some recordings it is not clear where they were recorded and only the date is known. Mrs. Guillou-Varga has kindly given her permission for this publication to please you as an organ lover. The list is as follows:

1977-10-29: De Doelen Rotterdam
1978-08-04: Bavokerk Haarlem
1978-08-05: Laurenskerk Rotterdam
1979-12-26: Bavokerk Haarlem: Kerstconcert
1980-07-03: Grote kerk Breda, Domkerk Utrecht
1982-08-02: Grote kerk Leeuwarden
2000-05-12: Laurenskerk Rotterdam

Jean Guillou has taken the organ world by surprise with his syncretic version of the B.A.C.H. by Liszt, take for example his live performance in the Nôtre Dame in Paris from 1977. At least as overwhelming is his recording on the organ in Alpe d’Huez that he designed and built by Kleuker, which is comparable in terms of disposition to the choir organ in the Notre Dame. The Liszt Academy in Budapest has awarded this recording a ‘Grand Prix’. The jury report can be found here, as well as correspondence with the Academy.

It was not an easy matter to receive the prize. Both Jean Guillou and Herman van Vliet had concerts planned and Lieke van Vliet ran a record store and a young family. Remember that in 1982 Hungary was still part of the Warsaw Pact (1955-1991) and the Iron Curtain had certainly not yet fallen. Fortunately, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to do the honors. The correspondence about this gives a nice picture of the time, as does the report from the BUZA Information Directorate of the meeting ‘in which many prominent figures from Hungarian musical life participated’, according to the first embassy secretary on site. On this site you will also find a photo series of a festive gathering of ladies and gentlemen Guillou and Van Vliet in Paris where the award was celebrated.

Herman van Vliet was known for his preference for French-Romantic organ music and has made an enormous contribution to the spread of this music, both through his own performances and through Festivo publications. He and Festivo received various awards for this. Something like that doesn’t happen by itself. After completing his conservatory training, he wanted to develop further, preferably with Jeanne Demessieux, but unfortunately this was not possible due to her untimely death. Fortunately, the opportunity arose to take lessons with another now famous Dupré student, namely Jean Guillou, who gave summer courses at various locations. Herman van Vliet has participated in such a course three times.

When asked what was the most important thing he had learned from Guillou, Herman van Vliet mentioned two things. The first was the question: ‘Sind Sie überzeugt?’, because they spoke to each other in German. Guillou asked this question to check with yourself whether you really support your opinion about how you want to play the piece, and all the musical choices you have made in it and therefore want to make it heard. A score does not play itself. The second was about the influence of the way you perform rhythmic figures in relation to the meter, which you also shape as a result, which is something completely different from ‘playing in time’. He specifically referred to Guillou’s treatment of Schumann’s Esquisses. Herman played this on the program of the student concert in 1979.

You can watch the programs and you will see other famous names on there as well. By the way, such a trip at that time without the internet, open borders or the euro required a lot of preparation, as evidenced by the many archive documents, including even a handwritten route plan from the Dutch Railways!

Jean Guillou’s musical views were not limited to the art of interpretation or improvisation, but also led to the formulation of his principles for organ building in his well-known book ‘l’Orgue: Souvenir et Avenir’. The Festivo editions with Liszt and Dupré were recorded on the in many ways revolutionary new organ of the Notre Dame des Neiges in Alpe d’Huez in France built by Kleuker according to a design by Guillou. Take a look through the various archive documents about the Guillou organs.