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Prayer Book

Litanies

Jehan Alain

What is a Litany?
Litanies are a type of prayer that involve a series of petitions and responses, and are used in Christian and Jewish worship services and processions. They are characterized by a repetitive pattern of petitions alternating with responses, such as "pray for us" or "Lord have mercy".

My Crazy Arrangement
When growing up, as a teenager, I would occasionlally listen to a pipe organ demo LP of my Dad's that had a variety of interesting pieces. My favorite was a modern somewhat dissonant piece called Litanies. Recently, I decided to look it up on the internet and lo and behold—I found a score online so I decided to record my own arrangement of this unusual piece. As you can hear—it's a far cry from the pipe organ version! *see links below

Litanies

About the Composer
Jehan Alain [1911 – 1940] was a French organist, composer, and soldier. He was born into a family of musicians and learned the organ from his father and a host of other teachers. Litanies--his most famous work—was composed in 1937. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Alain became a dispatch rider in the French Army where he took part in the Battle of Saumur, where he was killed.

About the Piece
This composition is prefaced with the author's text: "When the Christian soul no longer finds new words in its distress to implore God's mercy, it repeats incessantly the same invocation with a vehement faith. Reason has reached its limits. Alone, faith pursues its ascension." 

The work begins with a solo statement that returns incessantly throughout the work. This theme appears later in many guises: homophonically with varying degrees of complexity in harmony, in combination with a counter-melody, sometimes pushing forward, at times hesitating. Through all this, the theme remains insistent. There is little doubt that this reocurring theme is a direct representation of the ascent of faith that Alain discusses above.

Organ Performance