Hommage à Frescobaldi, V. Fantaisie

Jean Langlais (1907–1991) – Hommage à Frescobaldi, V. Fantaisie

With the Fantaisie, Langlais’s cycle pivots decisively from interior reflection to full virtuosity. The movement is built on the chant Cunctipotens genitor Deus—the same ancient Kyrie melody that opened the entire set—now transformed into a driving, brilliant display of rhythmic and manual dexterity. The technical demands are heightened further by Langlais’s insistence on legato touch; even the most agile fanfare gestures must be played in a connected manner. What could be straightforward virtuosity becomes a most complex and exacting challenge. Only at the end, with the repeated contrary motion in the hands over punctuated pedal tones, does Langlais finally permit staccato articulation.

Though labeled a “fantaisie,” the structure unfolds as a loose rondo (ABCA’B’A’’). A striking fanfare built on open fifths—tossed antiphonally between manuals—opens the movement. Its sharp contours and rhythmic bite immediately establish a new, energetic character. In the second section, the cantus firmus enters in the pedal on a commanding trumpet stop while the manuals weave an accompaniment in fourths and fifths, a sonority that feels simultaneously archaic and thoroughly modern.

Part III breaks into a lively, toccata-like episode full of rapid arpeggios and quasi-scalar figures traded between the hands. Parts IV and V develop the fanfare and cantus firmus materials respectively. Langlais intensifies the texture with melismatic right-hand patterns that form counter-melodies above the pedal chant, heightening the movement’s cumulative momentum. A final section recalls the opening fifths once more, bringing this ternary-within-rondo design to a decisive close. The Fantaisie emerges as the cycle’s first fully extroverted statement—an exuberant transformation of a centuries-old chant into the rhythmic and harmonic language of 20th-century France. (ChatGPT assisted in editing this description.)