5 Hymnes - IV. Audi Benigne

Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, known often simply as Daniel-Lesur (November 19, 1908 – July 2, 2002) was a French organist and composer.

A student of Tournemire, in 1935 he became professor of counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum under its new director, Nestor Lejeune.

The following year he co-founded the group La Jeune France along with composers Olivier Messiaen (with whom he would remain a lifelong friend), André Jolivet and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a more human and less abstract form of composition. La Jeune France developed from the avant-garde chamber music society La spirale, formed by Jolivet, Messiaen, and Daniel-Lesur the previous year.

That same year he, together with Jean Langlais and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, gave the first performance of Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur.

Daniel-Lesur also served as director of the Opéra National de Paris from 1971 to 1973.

Audi Benigne - Attributed to Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604). In the Roman Breviary this hymn is used at Vespers during Lent for both Sundays and the ferial Office from the first Sunday in Lent until the Friday before Passion Sunday. In the Liturgia Horarum it is used at Vespers for the Sunday Office from the first Sunday until the Saturday before Holy Week.

This movement probably has the most colorful registration of the set so far - Gambe vs Bourdon, followed by Cromorne vs 16 and 8 Bourdons, the first registration returns, but now with nazard and tierce alone in the pedale (bird calls?) finishing with flute 4' vs voix celeste and 16' in the pedale. Sheer magic!