Music
Langlais was a prolific composer, composing 254 works with opus numbers, the first of which was his Prelude and Fugue for organ (1927), and the last his Trio (1990), another organ piece. Although best known as a composer of organ music and sacred choral music, he also composed a number of instrumental, orchestral and chamber works and some secular song settings.
Langlais's music is written in a late, free tonal style, representative of mid-twentieth-century French music, with rich and complex harmonies and overlapping modes, more tonal than his contemporary, friend and countryman Olivier Messiaen, but related to his two predecessors at Sainte-Clotilde, César Franck and Charles Tournemire.
His best-known works include his four-part masses, Messe solennelle, and Missa Salve Regina, his Missa in simplicitate for unison voice and organ, and his many organ compositions, including:
- Hymne d'actions de grâces from Three Gregorian Paraphrases
- La nativité and Les rameaux (The Palms)(Poèmes Evangeliques)
- Chant héroïque, Chant de paix, and De profundis from Nine Pieces
- Kyrie "Orbis factor" from Livre œcuménique
- Incantation pour un jour saint (Incantation for Easter)
- Suite brève
- Suite médiévale
- Folkloric Suite
- Trois méditations sur la Sainte Trinité
- Fête, Op. 51
- 24 Pieces for harmonium or organ, Op. 6
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