Charles Tournemire’s monumental work for solo organ, “L’Orgue Mystique,” has finally made its way to Chestnut Hill. A complete performance of the French composer and organist’s 253-movement, 15-hour masterpiece is underway at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

The first three “sonatas” in the “magnus opus” were performed Tuesday, Feb. 24, by Richard Spotts, the world’s acknowledged expert on Tournemire, in general, and on “L’Orgue Mystique” in particular. The series continues at 7:30 p.m., Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays through March 31.

The entire masterpiece consists of solo organ sonatas based on 51 scriptural/liturgical readings from the entire calendar of the Roman Missal of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ at Rome. They are, in effect, organ tone poems on not so much the texts of each one specifically but, rather of their internal, substantial place in the “plan of salvation” as preached by the Roman Catholic Church.

For his first recital, Spotts chose “Gaudete Pink Sunday” in Advent, the “Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” which falls within Advent, and “Christmas,” in effect, the “Mass of Christ’s Nativity.”

Although it’s not as lugubrious in nature as is Lent, Advent is also a penitential season during which the Christian faithful prepare themselves for the long-awaited birth of the savior, who will turn the darkness of the sin of the world into the brightness of the promise of heaven.

The Immaculate Conception is a particularly Roman conviction: that the Blessed Virgin, in order to bear the Son of God (Jesus) was conceived without the stain of original sin. The Orthodox Churches of the East have long accepted the belief as a pious truth that needn’t have been explicitly spelled out. Many High Church Anglicans accept it in theory, while virtually no Protestants do.

On the other hand, Christmas (and Easter) is the central article of faith for all of Christendom.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was chosen mostly because it’s one of the few parish churches in the world with a world-class pipe organ on which an organist could actually produce the sounds Tournemire intended. Its 114 ranks and 7,300+ pipes guarantee the plethora of timbers and tones needed. And Richard Spotts is one of the few concert organists capable of doing justice to the composer’s sublime inspiration.

St. Paul’s is at 22 E. Chestnut Hill Ave. For information, visit stpaulschestnuthill.org.

Fairmount String Quartet

The Fairmount String Quartet will perform “Chiaroscuro” Saturday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 Saint Martin’s Lane, Chestnut Hill, and Sunday, March 8, at 3 p.m., in the Willow Grove Branch of Settlement Music School, 318 Davisville Road in Montgomery County.

The program will include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s String Quartet, K. 589, Suzanne Dicker’s “A Human Battle with a Heartless World,” and Johannes Brahms’ String Quartet Opus 51 No. 1.

For more information visit fairmountstringquartet.org.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.