FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 33/2

P.O. Box 161323, Altamont Springs FL 32716. This work

dates from over twenty years ago, and if "organ masses" have

since gone the way of the dinosaur, liturgically speaking, the

work is certainly a testimony to the continued viability of

organ masses as purely musical forms. There is also an

expanded setting by the composer, incorporating SATB choir

and additional movements; this, of course, would be more

strictly liturgical, but otherwise, one good organ piece

is, perhaps, never really more or less suitable for liturgy

than any other good organ piece, depending upon the desired

ambience. Although the ambience here is positively luscious

and very much in the manner of the best French

improvisateurs, each of the five movements--Kyrie, Sanctus,

Benedictus, Agnus dei, and Carillon (Toccata)--has, for the

most part, a single tempo, a single rhythm, a single motif,

and a single affect, and that affect is quite the same

throughout each of the first four movements. Jean Langlais,

to whom the work was dedicated, declared it and "full of

poetry" and "well composed." There are some curious

passages, in the Kyrie and Benedictus, in which,

for a few notes only, a third hand is needed.