This recording contains Langlais’s complete works for organ and trumpet. Though these pieces are united by a brilliant compositional originality, each collection differs from the others in character and style. The listener will find two large-scale works of over-arching form – the Pièce and Sonatine – and two collections of shorter but no less important pieces – the 7 Chorales and 9 Pièces. The organ and trumpet converse incessantly in a unique sound world. In the 7 Chorales, the trumpet is entrusted ‘only’ with the Protestant chorale tunes, while the organ accompanies them with an incessant flourishing in richly varied harmony and counterpoint. By contrast, in the Pièce pour trompette, it is the trumpet that is given free rein for virtuosic display, the organ relegated to small orchestral interventions. At other times, as in most of the 9 Pièces, a homogeneous balance between the two instruments is sought. From a sonic point of view, each of these Pièces is a world of its own.

This recording features the Brondino Vegezzi-Bossi organ at the Protestant Temple in Gland (on the north shore of Lake Geneva) – a particularly fine organ with sonorities typical of the French symphonic instrument. This turned out to be a winning choice, as not only does the instrument’s sound recall that of the great Parisian Cavaillé-Coll organs, it also features some of the sonorities typical of the French Neo-Classical organ that best reflect Langlais’s conception of organ timbre.