Scores for the organ, designed by an organist

Renaud Vergnet is a professional organist and the incumbent organist of Saint-Pierre-du-Gros-Caillou Church in Paris. He is a graduate of the conservatoires of Boulogne-Billancourt and Issy-les-Moulineaux, where he was awarded First Prizes in organ and composition.

‘Since I have been using large-format scores, I no longer need an assistant; I can concentrate fully on the music and on registration changes. I have been using them for a very long time, and today I would find it difficult to do without them. This is why, a few years ago, I decided to launch the OrganScore editions, in order to make them available to the community of organists.’ 

As a musician, Renaud Vergnet draws on a wide range of influences. However, in his work on the OrganScore collection, he has set himself the goal of offering a reference edition of the repertoire of the great organ masters. This has led him to focus not only on ergonomic aspects, but also on the quality of the musical text itself.

In this respect, he has taken a particular interest in defining the scope of the works and in selecting the most appropriate sources for the complete organ works of J. S. Bach. This corpus notably includes an original edition of the Neumeister Chorales, as well as a selection of harpsichord pieces suitable for performance on the organ. He has also completed several unfinished works and introduced new transcriptions.

Renaud Vergnet has also undertaken the edition of the organ works of D. Buxtehude, for which the reliability of the sources is problematic. To this end, he studied all the surviving manuscripts in order to propose an original and coherent version.

More recently, he has expanded the OrganScore catalogue with numerous composers presented in the form of complete works (Brahms, Franck, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Grigny, as well as the symphonies of Vierne and Widor), alongside transcriptions (Vivaldi, Mozart, Debussy), and three volumes of Offertoires & Dialogues sur les grands jeux, bringing the collection to 45 references to date.

He continues to work on new volumes, which will be published on a regular basis.