Récital d’Orgue : Thibault Fajoles

Presented by Sacred Music Notre Dame of Paris. Between shadow and light, this concert offers a meditation on life, death and the hereafter, subjects that have preoccupied composers since the earliest centuries.

It will be introduced by the transcription of the overture to Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman, evoking the curse of a ship, condemned to wander the sea in search of redemption.

Follows Prelude, Adagio and Chorale Varied on the theme of the Veni Creator by Duruflé, based on a 9th-century hymn bearing this spirit of expectation that runs through Christian life.

Duruflé's language, combining Gregorian modality and impressionism inherited from Debussy and Ravel, serves here a deep evocation of hope in the Holy Spirit. Two visions of death will then be contrasted.

On one hand, the Funeral March and Seraphic Song by Alexandre Guilmant, solemn vision with military bearing. On the other, the fantastic and burlesque point of view of Camille Saint-Saëns in the Danse Macabre.

Finally, like a phoenix rising from its ashes, in Hyperion or the Rhetoric of Fire by Guillou, fire is a pretext for representing resurrection as a liberating and poetic force.