Méditation sur le Salve Regina - Léonce de St Martin

One of the many pleasures of being a musician is searching for and falling in love with new pieces, sometimes rather unexpectedly. I am putting together a program for St John the Divine on Sunday 14th October at 5pm, focussing on the compositions of the Organist Titulaires of Notre-Dame de Paris - including Antoine Calviere, Louis Vierne, le Compte Léonce de St Martin and Pierre Cochereau. I discovered this very beautiful Méditation sur le Salve Regina, composed by Léonce de St Martin in 1949. It is virtually unknown but totally exquisite. Although you can hear the coloristic influence of his teacher Charles Tournemire, and the soundscape of Debussy is never far away, there is a real sincerity and expressive individuality in this piece, which seems to invoke the very stones of the cathedral. As you can hear, it translates beautifully to St John the Divine - what a pleasure over these past two days to fully immerse in this lush francophile atmosphere, overflowing with ravishing harmonies and wafting Flutes and Strings.