In the nineteenth century one, and only one, woman was made a professor of the Paris Conservatoire. Professor of piano, Louise Farrenc – née Jeanne-Louise Dumont (her husband had been a flautist, but settled down to become a music publisher, and Éditions Farrenc had significant success). She, herself, developed from a child prodigy of an artistic family, into a successful concert pianist and also an esteemed teacher, though she still had to agitate for equal pay with her inevitably male colleagues.

Her piano works tend to the virtuosic, especially as might be expected, the Études, but I want to think briefly today about a piece in a very different style; an organ work entitled Élévation. Marked adagio religioso and registered on soft foundations with a voix céleste, the effect is music that does not disturb.

The title ties it to the Mass and the moment when the consecrated elements are raised towards heaven. It was not uncommon in Catholic services in France at the time for the action of the liturgy to be largely inaudible to the congregation – and the organ therefore to simply continue playing rather than expecting the words of consecration to be heard by the faithful – but the elevation of the elements invites a moment of adoration from the people, and the music at that point should reflect that.

There are Élévations which can be majestic and triumphant, but others, including this one by Farrenc, are much more meditative. In a lightly chromatic but essentially unmodulated F major (there is a gesture towards the dominant key, but not so much as to disturb the homeliness of the sound) the congregation is invited to dwell on the sacrament as a locus of peace, of comfort, of comfortableness.

Is that the only way to approach the central mystery of the Church’s life? I suspect there are many valid approaches, of which this attitude is only one; that certainly does not invalidate reverent calm, however, and perhaps music such as this can help us focus our attention on the sacrament in a fruitful way?