One of the chief drawbacks with reviewing any biography is being able to assess its appeal to a market that is already overburdened with volumes on obscure actors, famous sportsmen, politicians and the like. Music biography has a limited appeal, so to add to this a volume dedicated to the life and work of a French organist and composer might seem, to some, somewhat foolhardy. However, that Jean Langlais (1907-1992) was one of the music world's more colourful characters is without doubt, and from this viewpoint alone, Jean Langlais: The Man and his Music makes interesting reading. Blind since birth, he climbed his own Mount Parnassus to become one of the leading lights in the post-symphonic French organ tradition and although his music is relatively unknown outside the closeted, dusty world of the organist, the individuality of his musical language and style is nevertheless worthy of study.

Ann Labounsky, one-time Langlais pupil and, had he had his way, one-time lover, has written this candid account from the point of one who knew him intimately. But whereas this might cause a conflict of interest in some, Labounsky has provided us with a no-holds-barred account of this diminutive, irascible character, whose renown as a conqueror of women was, in some musical circles as great as his renown as a composer. His ménage à trois with his wife Jeanette and lover Marie-Louise Jacquet, his numerous other affairs and his becoming a father at the age of 73 all made interesting gossip in the organ lofts and concert halls of Europe and, frankly, also make interesting reading. But the manner in which Labounsky has presented this aspect of Langlais's character is far from the titillation of the gutter press gossip-mongers; she is sensitive to his character, instead almost justifying what, in the eyes of many, must be seen as reprehensible. His love of women was as great a source of musical and spiritual inspiration as his love of the church and its liturgy, with the conflict between the two carefully and explained away in a 'Langlais-is-Langlais' manner - not an excuse, but a statement of fact.

What also becomes clear from the book is that, as a composer, Langlais was prolific, with an oeuvre of organ music that numbers only second to J. S. Bach. Although some of those pieces are trite, there remains not only a large corpus of organ music, but also many songs, liturgical settings and orchestral pieces that are both tasteful and imaginative. The Messe Solonnelle (1951) is a case in point, and anyone who has heard Westminster Cathedral Choir's performance of this (Hyperion CDA 66270, 1987) cannot have failed to be moved by its strength and exhilaration. Labounsky's commentaries on the music, however, are little other than general descriptions, most of which are presented in a somewhat facile manner: much of this is knowledge that a large proportion of readers will already possess. It is certain that her strengths do not lie in analysis, and integrating such commentaries into a biographical text makes an assessment of Langlais's compositional language a difficult, if not next to impossible task. Rather, a two-part study would have been more useful, one in which biography is discrete from an assessment of his music and place as a composer. Equally frustrating is the lack of an index of Langlais's works, making its use as a reference volume particularly useless.

As the first English-language monograph devoted to Langlais, those with organ-loft persuasions will find Labounsky's book interesting, if not intriguing, reading.

Ian le Prévost