A few days before we meet in Paris, Olivier Latry has given an organ recital in Brunoy, outside the city, on a French 18th-century style organ recently built by Bertrand Cattiaux, before teaching at the conservatoire; the following day he plays in Germany, and his week ends with a recital on the famous Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint-Sulpice. It's an ordinary week for someone who performs around 90 concerts every year, has been titulaire of Notre-Dame since the age of 23, teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur, and gives masterclasses and premieres around the world. He is William T. Kemper artist-in-residence at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA from 2019 until 2024. His diary is almost full until 2027.

What he'd like to convey first and foremost, Latry tells me, is generosity, passion and the joy of living. Full of energy, animated with strong convictions, never dogmatic but open to new ideas and happy to be challenged, Latry is a great communicator and spending time in his company is always enjoyable and rewarding. His simplicity and gaiety match his desire to preserve his childlike sense of wonder, a quality he found in his former teacher at the Conservatoire of Saint-Maur, the late Gaston Litaize, whom he respected and admired.

Latry insists on the importance of truth. ‘Organists are too often the prisoners of a kind of truth they cannot escape from. That is not the musician's truth, which is to try to get to the bottom of the meaning and spirit of music.’ Too often, he says, organists adhere rigidly to the text and forget what really matters. ‘Pianists are more instinctive and simply do what they feel like doing. I believe instinct should always prevail. Of course, you must have studied the rules, but afterwards, it is important to break free from them. As I often say, the composer's dead anyway, so he won't mind!'

Working with contemporary composers interests him. ‘The non-organists open up new vistas, with different modes of playing and registrations we might not have thought of, because they want specific colours which correspond to their own soundscape. As for the composers that are organists, interestingly their priorities are not necessarily the same as ours. For instance, I once told Gaston Litaize I was ill-at-ease with a passage in his Scherzo, and he simply said: “Add an extra bar.” In his own Scherzo! And people worry about the respect of the text and all that… So, for me, what really matters is the coherence of the discourse. The performer should be as pragmatic as the composer. One instance that struck me was when Messiaen played La Nativité in Toulouse. In “Les bergers", he could not use the Clarinet and Nazard, marked mf, the first time around, and then the Hautbois with the Octavin, p, since at Saint-Sernin the Hautbois is on the Positive and the Clarinet on the Récit. So, he played on the Hautbois the first time around, and then on the Clarinet: exactly the reverse of what is on the printed score. In other words, the nuance mattered more to him than the timbre. Composers’ priorities are not always clear to many organists.’

Teaching is something that Latry loves. ‘It's passion that matters, whether you are performing or teaching. The interaction with the pupil, who may have a different approach from yours, is very stimulating. It would be horrible to say, “Do it like this because I'm telling you to do so.” I'm interested in the confrontation of ideas. Poulenc said in an interview: “Youth must be ferocious. Otherwise, there is no youth.” Confrontations are necessary.'

He insists on teaching technique, primarily. ‘Paderewski's teacher, Theodor Leschetizky, said: “Transcend the technique, in order never to stop singing.” I find this quite beautiful. I wouldn't want a pupil to be limited in his musical conception because of a technical problem. Beyond this, I think the role of a teacher is also to [pay] heed to the pupil's well-being. If, as I think, you play as you are, then it's better to feel well!'

Latry requires his pupils to play by heart. ‘It will paralyse them at first, so you have to help them overcome this, and memory is something you can work on. Pupils must first learn how to reach and then [exceed] their limits, and then how to integrate the score so that it does not bother them anymore. If I have a problem of memory - and that happens to me, you know - it's no big deal. I think that memory is a little bit like a wall. You build a wall by [stacking] brick upon brick. One layer is the notes, another the harmonies, another the contrapuntal movements, another the fingering, another the mnemotechnical [memorising] processes, and so on. If you [suddenly] don't remember a note, you know what the harmony is, or what the melodic movement is, so you can always hang on to something. And then you do not learn by heart: you know by heart. Once the music is in your brain, you can work on it 24 hours a day, everywhere, in the street, in your shower, on the underground.’

Playing early French repertoire on the Clicquot organ at Souvigny © LAURENT THION/ECLIPTIQUE

‘Improvisation has become more natural for me over the last ten years, whereas I used to be a little afraid. I honed my skills during services at Notre-Dame’ © PHILIPPE GAYONNET

Playing and teaching early music requires original research, he maintains. ‘I've just compiled sources on early French fingering. It is quite a complex issue and there remains a lot to be discovered. The right fingering changes the whole approach to the keyboard - articulation, sound, everything. Strangely, those who rediscovered early music did not pay much attention to that aspect. They did a great job but now it's time to go further. I encourage my pupils to do their own research and challenge me, but not enough of them do.’ As a student, Latry attended the classes of Jean Saint-Arroman and Michel Chapuis at Pierrefonds. ‘We all wrote down what Saint-Arroman told us - even Chapuis, who was supposed to know everything, would take notes - and the following week, we would check the sources in libraries. For me it is important to carry on with this research.’

Although Latry does not favour one activity over another, if he were to keep just one, he would choose to remain organist of Notre-Dame because of the connection with faith. ‘Often, at the end of a concert, when I see people standing up and clapping, I wonder why they are applauding me. It's the music [they should applaud], it's the composer, or God. I'm only the go-between. The mission is the same, whether you play in a church or give a concert, even with profane music, because there's always an act of the Creator.'

How does Latry work with conductors - does he have to explain the organ to them? ‘Well, they react in very different ways. For instance, Christoph Eschenbach was receptive and we had an excellent rapport; he let me choose my registrations. Sometimes, he wanted something extremely soft, as though he wanted the organ to be almost non-existent, but in fact he made the Philadelphia Orchestra play softly to that sound, and it was magical. If the organ, which has a straight sound, breaks abruptly into the nuances of the orchestra, it can destroy everything. For instance, in the Adagio of Saint-Saëns's Third Symphony, I use all three manuals and no fewer than 20 or 25 combinations of stops, while there are only three pages of music; when there is a very slight crescendo, I simply follow the orchestra. This enables me to construct very gradual crescendos on different instruments in a more orchestral manner.'

Latry insists on an adequate amount of preparation at the instrument on which he will perform. ‘When I discover an organ I try out every single stop, and then how the stops blend two by two… it takes time’ © DEYAN PAROUCHEV

Can he say something about organs in Britain and North America? ‘As a matter of fact, organ building tends to get more and more standardised. Thankfully there remain a few specificities, without which it would be a little boring. In England, organs tend to be very polite, genteel, without anything speaking loudly, and sometimes you want something a little violent. These organs compel you to play like this, it's impossible to change their character, you cannot browbeat them. Of course, it does not mean that English organs aren't beautiful, but it's a different world. I love the organ in St Paul's Cathedral; I played the whole of Messiaen there, thanks to John Scott - it was a marvellous experience. In the USA it's more eclectic - there are a lot of different accents. I love the Taylor & Boody in Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, probably one of the five most beautiful organs in the USA. In a very different style - the American style - the Skinner organ at Yale is really extraordinary. And the restored Wanamaker organ… it makes you want to cry! And there are fantastic small instruments, by builders such as Fisk (the organ of Stanford University, for instance) or John Brombaugh.’

Turning to the art of transcription, Latry admits to some initial reluctance when approached by Deutsche Grammophon to record at Notre-Dame. ‘For me, the organ repertoire comes first.’ Transcriptions of well-known music can introduce new listeners to the organ, though. Both Latry and his wife, Shin-Young Lee, perform Stravinksy's Rite of Spring in transcription. But not every work lends itself to the organ: ‘I cannot imagine myself transcribing Ravel or Debussy, or Dutilleux, in whose music almost everything depends on the tone and the subtlety of the orchestration.'

Despite Latry's effective Salve Regina (2007), he claims to have composed ‘a lot of first pages’ and finds the process of spending hours on a piece tiresome. He has written that improvising is about forgetting about perfection, yet he is reticent. ‘I still do not feel I am a great improviser. There are organists who are born improvisers - Cochereau, of course, Pincemaille, Escaich, Lefebvre, Mallié. I like improvising but it was not natural at first. And I don't like having to forget about perfection… I never worked very hard at improvisation. Of course, you practise the technique of the fugue, canon and various forms, to acquire spontaneous reflexes. You must also have the harmonies at your finger-tips, to know how to modulate smoothly from one key to another. It's become more natural for me over the last ten years, whereas I used to be a little afraid. I honed my skills during services at Notre-Dame because you can't stop when you please as when practising at home. You can impose constraints on yourself - improvise a fugue, or on a fifth, a sixth or a seventh, or on a repeated note, and ask yourself, “How can I organise something around this? “ The worst is to rehash something; when you try it again, it just falls flat.’

Concert preparation is key to Latry's artistry. As well as working on the music mentally, he insists on an adequate amount of preparation at the instrument on which he will perform. ‘For a transcription of a piece by Wagner, say, you need at least eight hours, so you want a minimum of 25 hours of practice in all. The first thing I do when I discover an organ is try out every single stop, and then how the stops blend, two by two… it takes time.'

The restored organ of Notre-Dame is being reinstalled this year ready for the cathedral's reopening on 8 December 2024. ‘Before the fire, [it had reached] near-perfection, so there'll be no change to its disposition. I've already known three restorations of this organ, so that's enough!’ Indeed, great instruments will always remain a source of inspiration to Olivier Latry. ‘I am privileged in being able to play magnificent instruments, to go from one place to another and perform different repertoire. Passion is what animates me and I keep this child's view. When I arrive somewhere for a concert, it feels fantastic! I can share that with my pupils; these experiences influence the way I teach. There is an interaction between all these activities… It's all about the passion of discovering new things and learning. And the very act of learning teaches you how to learn.’