Expressions: 7

Jean Langlais was approached to write a music book containing pieces in that were relatively easy for use in both catholic and protestant church services. He agreed and wrote 15 works. He chose his student, Naji Hakim to also write 15 works.

Langlais' works are relatively easy and characteristic of his style. Someone should have told Hakim about the need to be playable...

The pieces were designed to lead into the next, allowing an organist to play for as long or as short as needed. They were written "in an impressionistic/twentieth century harmonic style" (Publisher's forward).

I really like Langlais' pieces in this book. Number 7 is a lovely piece which would be suited for a number of uses in a service or funeral. The registration called for foundations 8, 4 on Swell and Great. I misread this and registered it for just foundations 8. I also added in the Choir foundations, so all three manuals are coupled together.


Hope you enjoy these wonderful pieces. Mr Symphonic's youtube channel contains all 15 of Langlais' works and they are certainly worth checking out.

John