Rorate Caeli (Choral orné)

Regarded as one of the great organists of the 20th century, the French virtuoso Jeanne Demessieux was internationally renowned as a concert organist, improviser, liturgical musician, and teacher. Her set of Twelve Chorale Preludes on Gregorian Themes offers meditations on several iconic Gregorian melodies for the liturgical year. The first, “Rorate Caeli,” is a setting of the evocative plainchant melody for Advent, “Drop down, ye heavens, from above.” Subtitled ‘Choral orné’ the melody ispresented as a simple cantus firmus accompanied by sumptuous harmonies, which develop in their complexity.

Demessieux asks for the melody to be played on the ‘Cornet’, which in impossible on the small Cavaillé-Coll in Oloron-Sainte-Marie. For me, the beautiful ‘Basson et Hautbois’ and ‘Flûte traversière’ of the récit makes for a more than adequate substitution to bring out the haunting melody.