Langlais: Sacred Choral and Organ Works

View record and artist details

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Jean Langlais

Label: Hyperion

Magazine Review Date: 9/1988

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 51

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: CDA66270

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Missa Salve Regina	Jean Langlais, Composer Andrew Lumsden, Organ David Hill, Conductor English Chamber Orchestra Brass Ensemble James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer Westminster Cathedral Choir
Messe solennelle	Jean Langlais, Composer David Hill, Conductor James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer Westminster Cathedral Choir
Triptyque grégorien, Movement: Rosa mystica	Jean Langlais, Composer James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer
(3) Poèmes évangéliques, Movement: L'Anonciation	Jean Langlais, Composer James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer
(3) Paraphrases grégoriennes, Movement: Hymne d'actions de grâce (Te Deum)	Jean Langlais, Composer James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer

Composer or Director: Jean Langlais

Label: Hyperion

Magazine Review Date: 9/1988

Media Format: Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: KA66270

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Missa Salve Regina	Jean Langlais, Composer Andrew Lumsden, Organ David Hill, Conductor English Chamber Orchestra Brass Ensemble James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer Westminster Cathedral Choir
Messe solennelle	Jean Langlais, Composer David Hill, Conductor James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer Westminster Cathedral Choir
Triptyque grégorien, Movement: Rosa mystica	Jean Langlais, Composer James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer
(3) Poèmes évangéliques, Movement: L'Anonciation	Jean Langlais, Composer James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer
(3) Paraphrases grégoriennes, Movement: Hymne d'actions de grâce (Te Deum)	Jean Langlais, Composer James O'Donnell, Organ Jean Langlais, Composer

Author: Lionel Salter

The chances are that the music of Jean Langlais may be quite unfamiliar to all but organ buffs and lovers of chuch music. To anyone inclined to wonder if he is perhaps missing something through ignorance of this one-time pupil of Dukas, let me suggest listening to the tranquil and beautiful ''La nativite'' included here as a buffer between two of his four Masses. The best-known of these is the 1951 Messe solennelle, a fine work with a substantial independent organ part: rhetorical and colourful, it exploits a diversity of techniques—homophonic in the Kyrie, contrapuntal in the Gloria, chromatic in the Agnus Dei. The spacious acoustics of Westminster Cathedral do not permit such utter clarity of articulation in the organ part as in Ek's BIS recording listed above—and in the imaginative ''Benedictus'' the left-hand line at the start and the pedals in bar 10 are inaudible—but it is excellently played, the choir are splendidly firm in tone (even on the trebles' optional high C in the two ''Osannas''), and the overall effect is impressive.
With the Salve regina Mass of three years later, a work making much use of plainsong and pseudo-organum, and more pungently scored with two organs each fortified by a small brass group no problems of balance arise, and the performance by the male choir and unison trebles is suitably spirited. (In the Kyrie, bars 4 and 5 after letter E have been telescoped. but on the other hand bar 2 of the Agnus Dei is played twice: are these idiosyncracies due to the performance or the editing?) As an interlude—a kind of Offertory—in this work James O'Donnell plays Langlais's ''Rosa mystica'', which has the Salve regina plainsong on the pedals, but as this was composed a quarter of a century later and is cast in a more dissonant style, it accords somewhat awkwardly with the Mass's conscious archaism. But to round off the disc O'Donnell gives a thrilling reading of the Te Deum, magnificently recorded.'