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Jean Langlais

 
Music Encyclopedia: Jean Langlais
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( b La Fontenelle, 15 Feb 1907; d Paris, 8 May 1991). French composer and organist. He studied at blind school, with Dupré and Dukas at the Paris Conservatoire, and with Tournemire, whom he succeeded in 1945 as organist at Ste Clotilde. He visited the USA several times. His works are mostly masses and organ music, some based on Gregorian themes, enhanced by rich polymodal harmonies.


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Artist: Jean Langlais
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Jean Langlais
  • Period: Modern (1910-1949)
  • Born: February 15, 1907 in La Fontenelle, France
  • Died: May 08, 1991 in Paris, France
  • Genres: Choral Music, Keyboard Music

Biography

Blind from the age of two, this composer, organist, and influential teacher studied at the Institution des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for the Young Blind) in Paris. Langlais' harmony teacher was Albert Mahaut, a former pupil of César Franck. He studied piano with Blazy and organ with André Marchal, who was also blind.

In 1930, Langlais won the premier prix in organ in Marcel Dupré's class at the National Conservatory. In 1934, he won a composition prize in Paul Dukas' class and, like Messiaen, was one of the composer's last students.

Langlais studied improvisation with Charles Tournemire and received the Grand Prix d'Exécution et Improvisation des Amis de l'Orgue in 1931. He became organist for St. Pierre de Montrouge. During this time, Langlais composed his first works, the organ pieces Trois poèmes évangéliques (1932) and the 24 Pièces (1933-1939). In 1945, he joined the staff of the Institution des Jeunes Aveugles, where he was to remain for 40 years teaching and conducting the choir. Following in the steps of Franck and Tournemire, he became a professor at the prestigious organ tribune of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris, a position he held for the next 42 years. His immediate postwar compositions include the organ suites, his first Organ Concerto with orchestra (1949), and the famous choral Messe solennelle (1951), one of 13 masses composed by Langlais. The other most performed masses are the Missa in Simplicitate for chorus and organ (1953) and the impressive Missa Salve Regina for three solo vocalists, unison chorus, two organs, and eight brass (1954). The vast majority of Langlais' 254 compositions are on religious themes, although there are several concertos, organ symphonies, and individual secular pieces. Many pieces incorporate Gregorian themes that are varied with great originality and surrounded with expressive and splendid modal harmonies.

In 1952, Langlais visited the United States for the first time and proceeded to give approximately 300 recitals and hold many master classes there in the succeeding years. He composed numerous pieces for Americans, including an American Suite for organ (1959) and his Solemn Mass "Orbis factor" for chorus and organ, which was premiered in Washington, D.C., in 1969.

Between 1961 and 1976, Langlais taught French and foreign students at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. His later compositions include choral and organ works and chamber pieces for trumpet. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide

Discography

Langlais joue Langlais à Notre-Dame de Paris

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Klingende Vergangenheit: Jean Langlais Improvisation

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Jean Langlais: Centenary Celebration

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Wikipedia: Jean Langlais
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Jean Langlais

"Life and Music of Jean Langlais"
Born 15 February 1907(1907-02-15)
La Fontenelle, France
Died 8 May 1991 (aged 84)
Paris, France
Occupation Organist and Composer

Jean Langlais (15 February 1907 – 8 May 1991) was a French composer of modern classical music, organist, and improviser.

Contents

Biography

Jean Langlais was born in La Fontenelle (Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany), a small village near Mont St Michel, France. Langlais became blind due to glaucoma when he was only two years old, and was sent to study at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris, where he began to study the organ. From there, he progressed to the Paris Conservatoire, obtaining prizes in organ, which he studied with Marcel Dupré, composition, which he studied with Paul Dukas, and improvisation, which he studied with André Marchal.

After graduating, he returned to the National Institute for the Young Blind to teach, and also taught at the Schola Cantorum from 1961 to 1976. However, it was as an organist that he made his name, following in the steps of César Franck and Charles Tournemire as Organist Titulaire at the Basilica of St. Clotilde, Paris in 1945, a post in which he remained until 1987. He was much in demand as a concert organist, and toured widely across Europe and the United States.

Outside music, Langlais was a colorful and charismatic character, for many years living with both his first wife and his mistress (later to become his second wife), and fathering a child at the age of 73.

Langlais died in Paris aged 84, and was survived by his second wife Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais.

To celebrate the contributions of this prominent twentieth century artist on the centenary of his birth, an English-language DVD, Life and Music of Jean Langlais, was released in 2007 by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Music

Langlais was a prolific composer, composing 254 works with opus numbers, the first of which was his Prelude and Fugue for organ (1927), and the last his Trio (1990), another organ piece. Although best known as a composer of organ music and sacred choral music, he also composed a number of instrumental and chamber works and some secular song settings.

Langlais's music is written in a late, free tonal style, representative of mid-twentieth-century French music, with rich and complex harmonies and overlapping modes, more tonal than his contemporary and countryman Olivier Messiaen. His best-known works include his four-part masses, Messe Solennelle, Missa Orbis Factor and Missa Salve Regina, and his Mouvement perpétuel for piano.

His other acclaimed compositions include:

  • Hymne d’Actions de Grâces from Three Gregorian Paraphrases
  • La Nativité
  • Chant Héroïque, Chant de paix, and De profundis from Nine Pieces
  • Kyrie "Orbis factor" from Livre Œcuménique
  • Les Rameaux (The Palms)
  • Incantation pour un Jour Saint (Incantation for Easter)
  • Suite Breve
  • Suite Medievale
  • Trois Méditations sur la Sainte Trinité

Bibliography

  • Jean Langlais: The Man and His Music, by Ann Labounsky, Amadeus Press, 2000. ISBN 1-57467-054-9
  • Ombre et Lumière : Jean Langlais 1907-1991, by Marie-Louise Jaquet-Langlais, Paris: Éditions Combre, 1995. ISBN 2-9506073-2-2

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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