Hommage à Frescobaldi, II. Offertoire

Jean Langlais (1907–1991) – Hommage à Frescobaldi, II. Offertoire

The Offertoire forms the second panel of Langlais’s Hommage à Frescobaldi, continuing his tribute not by copying Frescobaldi’s idiom, but by engaging the same liturgical materials that anchor the Fiori musicali. In this movement, the chant Lucis Creator serves as the cantus firmus—presented in long, deliberate tones—while Langlais weaves a dense, glowing harmonic fabric around it.

The writing is unmistakably his: modal yet modern, rich in shifting chromatic color, and propelled by subtle rhythmic inflections that keep the texture alive without disturbing its meditative character. The steady presence of the chant gives the piece an inward gravitas, suggesting the quiet dignity of the Offertory ritual itself.

Langlais’s use of Lucis Creator also deepens the work’s historical resonance. Frescobaldi employed the same body of Roman chant in crafting organ music for the Mass; Langlais, centuries later, honors that practice by setting the identical source through a 20th-century lens. The result again exemplifies this cycle’s governing idea: an homage rooted in source and function, not in Baroque pastiche.

The Offertoire stands both as a continuation of tradition and a personal expression of faith—its chant-laden pedal line anchoring a sonority that is unmistakably French, unmistakably Langlais, and unmistakably liturgical. (I used ChatGPT for this write-up.)

Recorded here on the coming-soon Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Rieger (this is still a beta version) as sampled by Evensong. This is the second installment of the cycle, which I plan to perform in its entirety.