The registration of Jets d'Orgue is laid out with the intention that the richess of every individual organ will be exploited to the full. The choice of title relates to a work for chorus and orchestra that I composed back in the sixties called Transformation I, on the way to hallelujah . It makes good on a promise I made back then in the form of a vision, in which I would one day 'master' my profession and thereby attain the freedom to play, unfettered, with musical ideas. That also meant facing the question of individual vs. orchestra. My preoccupation with this problem is evidenced by, for example, recruiting seven players from the orchestra to challenge the soloist and to position themselves amongst the audience.
Evolution is the work's central theme.
When at last in 1992 the first performance took place, my conviction in the work's potential was so invigorated that I completed movements 2 and 4, after first carrying out a few fundamental changes and touch-ups to the first and third movements. The orchestra's make-up is extremely conservative but is adapted to current practices. I allowed myself great freedom in my approach to the material, but careful submission to the demands of this type of orchestra. Debussy was never far from my writing table when I composed the Songs . The third song even opens with a direct quote from La Mer .