Jean Yves Daniel-Lesur, French composer and teacher, was born in Paris in 1908. His mother was a composer and a student of Tournemire, with whom Daniel-Lesur had early organ and composition lessons. He did further study at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1936 Daniel-Lesur was, with Messiaen, Jolivet, and Baudrier, a founding member of the group La Jeune France, dedicated to a "return to the human" and opposed to the neo-classicism then prevailing in Paris. Epithalame comes from a collection that sets to music the Song of Songs. Daniel-Lesur uses the tune of the Veni sponsa Christi chant and layers its text with the following famous passage.

04/07