JEAN-LOUIS FLORENTZ, La Croix du Sud, Poème Symphonique pour Grand Orgue, op. 15. Leduc 29 336. This large, rich, and nearly seamless symphonic fresco is meant to evoke the primal divinity of the great African deserts, where the composer has conducted extensive ethnomusicological field research. Though originally conceived in 1975-78, it was completed in 1999, with a view toward the use of the full resources of an instrument such as Notre-Dame de Paris, and is dedicated to Olivier Latry. The structural analysis of this work does not define its character so much as the manner in which the composer “modulates,” with utmost finesse, from one sonority to another–whether within the course of a figure, a phrase, or a sweeping succession of passages, there is a sense of harmonic latency that seems to encompass at once both the simplest and the most complex combinations of tones. The horizontal writing, too, is a model of rhapsodic continuity. The layout occasionally requires five, six, and (in one place) even seven staffs for its notation, yet the textures are utterly transparent, and each note seems to fulfill its necessary, unalterable role. There is frequent polyrhythm at play, not in any arbitrary juxtaposition of opposing time signatures, but rather, in the different values into which single beats of 4/4 time are divided in the various parts. In this, and in many other ways, a distinctly orchestral fabric is readily apparent. While this work makes great demands on both the organ and organist, it is a marvel of harmony, composition, and scoring, as well as a work of great depth and originality.

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