Chant de Paix (from: Neuf Pièces, Paris 1945)

Today's upload is just another trifle from my last few weeks, which were limited in terms of organ playing. And again, I have chosen a work by a composer whose music and aesthetics are rather foreign to me: Jean Langlais (1907-1991). However, his “Chant de Paix” touched me immediately on first hearing it.

Blind from an early age, Langlais learned to play the organ at the Paris Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles. He
later continued his studies at the Conservatoire with Marcel Dupré. Langlais's great career as an organist began: he soon taught at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles and also held a professorship at the Schola Cantorum in Paris; in addition, he was appointed titular organist at the famous Parisian church of Sainte-Clotilde in 1945.

1945 also saw the publication of Langlais's collection Neuf Pièces, on which the composer had been working from 1942 to 1943, i.e. during the German occupation of France. Some of these pieces represent musical reactions to the Second World War - in addition to the Chant de Paix, this applies in particular to
One of them is dedicated to the memory of Jehan Alain, who fell in battle in 1940, and another is entitled “Chant de Paix”. In it, the composer counters the man-made misery of death, destruction, and persecution with a music of silence, tenderness, and remembrance. The work is dedicated to Langlais's student Claire Boussac, whose peaceful nature Langlais tried to capture in his music. Above the chordal foundation of the voix céleste, the flutes of the pedal and positive play melody phrases that ascend slowly upward and begin to overlap in the second half, before the piece ends with a two-part ascent over a low drone pedal.

“Peace on earth” was the wish of the angel to the shepherds in the field at the annunciation of Jesus' birth. In times of devastating wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and many other places, we can only hope that humanity will finally come closer to realizing this wish in the New Year 2025.