Deuxième Fantaisie, AWV 91 (1936)

A timely offering (Offertoire?) for Pentecost with lots of spiritual references to fire!

The 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris was to be highly influential on the eclectic compositional palate used by Jehan Alain in works that followed his visits to the wide range of music and dance that were on show from the French colonies in North Africa and India. A fellow student, Denise Launey wrote, ‘The rhythms, the exotic timbres, the instruments unknown to the young city-dweller, those foreign modal scales… how foreign to the tonal language taught at the Conservatoire’.
The earliest music that bears the influences of this immersion into Eastern cultural exoticism appeared as Médine for Organ (1932). This work and another new work for piano became joined to form the organ work Deux Danses à Agni Yavishta (1933), a homage to the God of Fire and the God of the Home. Deux Danses and Le Jardin suspendu (1934) would pave the way for the 2e Fantaisie.
In 2e Fantaisie (Dec.1936), Alain develops ideas based on Eastern dance rhythms and modes and above all a spiritual sense and energy found in the sacramental element of fire. He also uses melodies from Christian and Jewish sources, combining both in the final section. The opening theme is thought (by Marie-Claire Alain) to be based on the first part of the plainchant antiphon Exultabunt Domino from the Roman Catholic burial service. Marie-Claire also believes that the theme played on the Cromorne at bar 26 (1:25), is a melody that Jehan remembered from his time spent as organist at the Parisian Synagogue de la Rue Nazareth (appointed 1935).

In a letter to his friend Marguerite Evain (Oct.1935), he wrote, ‘Fire which dances – the very expression of joy, of great joy, of sacred and terrifying joy. That which gently flows along the woods like a caress, its floating sparks waving like hair’.

Hope you liked it - only 7mins but will change your life view!!