On the 8th of December 2024, five-and-a-half years after the devastating fire of 2019, the great Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris reopened to the public. Officially marking this ‘rebirth’ is this recording of a new choral setting of the Magnificat by the organist-composer Yves Castagnet.

Since 1988 Castagnet has held the post of choir organist at Notre-Dame. His role also encompasses interpretative coaching for the cathedral’s choir school, La Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, which embraces five different choral ensembles for talented children, teenagers and adults. Conducting the Magnificat is the Maîtrise’s director, Henri Chalet. As he says: “Yves Castagnet’s Magnificat will both pay vibrant homage to Notre-Dame and provide proof of the Maîtrise’s continuing vigour and lustre as it creates a repertoire for the future. Like Maurice Duruflé, Yves Castagnet is a representative of the great French school of organ-playing.”

Castagnet himself participates in the recording, made with the Maîtrise’s adult choir and four soloists in another Paris church, the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde, “The text of the Magnificat has been part of my daily life for more than 30 years,” writes Castagnet. “It appears in the Catholic liturgy for Vespers. Every evening, I played the organ as the Magnificat was sung at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. The Virgin Mary’s own words, sung in a cathedral consecrated to her … How could one not respond to the power and beauty of this text?” Completing the album is more music by Castagnet, settings of Psalms 18, 26 and 115.