Hymnes - 1 - Ad regias Agni dapes

Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, known often simply as Daniel-Lesur (November 19, 1908 – July 2, 2002) was a French organist and composer.

A student of Tournemire, in 1935 he became professor of counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum under its new director, Nestor Lejeune.

The following year he co-founded the group La Jeune France along with composers Olivier Messiaen (with whom he would remain a lifelong friend), André Jolivet and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a more human and less abstract form of composition. La Jeune France developed from the avant-garde chamber music society La spirale, formed by Jolivet, Messiaen, and Daniel-Lesur the previous year.

That same year he, together with Jean Langlais and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, gave the first performance of Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur.

Daniel-Lesur also served as director of the Opéra National de Paris from 1971 to 1973.

This seventh century hymn is known as an Ambrosian hymn. So named because Ambrosian hymns were formerly supposed to have been written by St. Ambrose, or because they imitate the stanzaic form, the style, meter, and austere objectiveness of the genuine hymns of the Saint. It is now known for certain that many hymns formerly thought to be his are the compositions of unknown writers. These hymns are uniformly written in Iambic dimeter. The term Ambrosian implies no ascription of authorship, but merely a poetical form.

This setting is first heard with contrasting 8 an 4 foot flutes, then with the melody in the Pedale on an 8' Trompete, accompanied by 8 and 4' foundations with the Recit mixture. The piece returns to the opening registration and ends quietly. In listening and playing this and the other Hymnes, one can sense the affinity with the works of Messiaen and Grunenwald, his contemporaries.