I have never wondered why I took up the writing of this book. From my earliest exposure to the music of Maurice Duruflé, when I was in college, I felt the most profound affinity for the man himself. Thus was set in motion a quest that led me to Paris as a Fulbright student. But only a few days after settling into my apartment on rue de la Sorbonne in May 1975, I learned that the Duruflés had been gravely injured in an auto accident. The mystery that I have always believed surrounded the man grew more vast because of their tragedy, and because I would never meet him.

Long after Duruflé's death, and after Mme Duruflé's recovery, I traveled considerable distances to hear her perform on her U.S. tours. In 1993, having played the Duruflé organ works for many years, I worked them up in order to play them all in a couple of coaching sessions with her in Paris. I had one lesson on the organ in their apartment, and the other in the church. Seven years later, on January 22, 2000, I attended her memorial service in Paris, rendering thanks, as it were, for a precious gift that I shall always treasure de tout coeur.

Having never met Duruflé himself, it was important that I visit the places where he lived, his home in Louviers and his three apartments in Paris. I walked the halls of the choir school in Rouen and those of the Conservatoire in Paris. I also visited his vacation home and his grave, both in Ménerbes, not far from Avignon.

In the writing of this book I have assembled myriad random pieces of Duruflé's life in the hope that the result is a faithful and coherent semblance of a man who was frustratingly elusive. I like to imagine that what I now cherish of him is somehow complete, or at least as complete as it will ever be for me. The book is a collection of the souvenirs I have amassed, a scrapbook, if you will, documenting an affair. It is also a diary of my heart, in a way, and a map of my own labyrinthine mind.

Minneapolis, September 2006