FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 33/12

those who cry),is a bitonal duo between Bourdon and Trompette. The second,

Le saint et les oiseaux (The Saint and the Birds), is a ternary form in

which the A section (again, for manuals only) features bird chant,

while the B section, in unmeasured half-notes, alludes, one assumes, to

St. Francis of Assisi. The third movement is, again, a bitonal duo,

but with an extended middle section in an unbarred scherzo-like

recitative, accompanied only by a long pedal-point. A slow section

bridging to the da capo is written almost entirely in "white-notes," in

contrast to the prevailing harmonic style, and the short coda is,

likewise, almost completely diatonic. The fourth movement, Narcisse

(Narcissus), dates from 1979. It uses Foundations only, in well-varied

textures, and again, is strongly polytonal. The fifth and final

movement, titled after the Egyptian mythological figures Noun, Ra, Thot

(Chaos, Sun, God), is a dramatic apotheosis to the whole work. This

movement clearly juxtaposes, throughout various subdivisions, the

contrasting atonal, polytonal, diatonic, and "white-note" styles

previously employed. One could wish that an explanatory program note

had lent more unity to the various topical elements in this score,

particularly in the final movement.