This is the official album released to mark the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on December 8, 2024. The central work is a new setting in Latin of the Magnificat canticle, composed in April and May 2020 during the first lockdown by Yves Castagnet (b1964), a year after the devastating fire.

Under the direction of Henri Chalet, the adult choristers of the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris are joined by a quartet of soloists and – with the composer himself at the organ of the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde, Paris – one can be confident that this is an authoritative if not definitive recording. The choir is quite closely recorded, to the advantage of clarity of diction.

Castagnet has been the choir organist at the cathedral since 1988 and knows exactly what works best for his choristers. He writes of his ‘unconditional admiration for JS Bach’s setting of the Magnificat’, claiming it to be perhaps ‘my favourite among all his works’. Castagnet breaks the work into 10 sections, responding to the text with a colourful palette. The choral writing is also assured and satisfyingly varied. In terms of stylistic influences, although he is clearly indebted to his Parisian forebears, his own idiom is solidly diatonic, with added-note chords aplenty as well as melting modulations.

The Magnificat starts with an extended organ introduction, a pulsing moto perpetuo that imparts a clear sense of the Virgin Mary at her spinning wheel. This segues into a rather beautiful ‘Respexit’ movement, which unfurls gently from a hummed a cappella opening. Soprano Thaïs Raï is on splendid form here. The dramatic impulses behind the ‘Quia fecit’ and ‘Fecit potentiam’ sections are powerfully met. The work’s midpoint, ‘Deposuit’, is especially vivid, with the organ centre stage and a virile contribution from tenor Jordan Mouaïssia. Castagnet’s strict contrapuntal skills come to the fore in the fine choral fugato that opens the ‘Sicut locutus est’ before the longest movement, the ‘Gloria’, rounds things off in most splendid fashion, with Duruflé’s spirit floating close by.

To complete the album, three psalm-settings feature in turn the male voices, upper voices and mixed ensemble. Psalm 18 (‘The heavens declare the glory of God’) features the most harmonically advanced music in this highly enjoyable programme.

One hopes that after the premiere in 2025 this lovely new setting of the Magnificat will enjoy widespread currency among our finest choirs and organists.