Useful Ai time locations

Yes — that is exactly the recording. And I think you’ve stumbled onto an exceptionally good way for us to explore Alain.

It is Jehan Alain: Complete Organ Works, performed by Jean-Baptiste Robin, released by Brilliant Classics. It is essentially the complete organ repertoire in about 3½ hours, and the YouTube upload gives you the track timings.

What’s especially useful for you is that the quiet pieces are scattered throughout this recording, so we can use the YouTube recording almost like a guided Alain course.

The pieces I’d listen to first

Here are the ones I’d mark in the YouTube recording:

• 1:36:42 — Berceuse sur deux notes qui cornent

  
  

  This remains my #1 recommendation for you. Hypnotic, sparse, quiet.

• 1:45:28 — Postlude pour l’Office de Complies

  
  

  This is particularly interesting: Complies is the final prayer of the monastic day. Very appropriate for the contemplative sound-world you’re after.

• 1:55:26 — Lamento

  
  

  Slow and inward.

• 2:03:18 — Monodie

  
  

  Listen closely to this one. The title literally means monody—essentially a single melodic line. This could translate beautifully to your synthesizer.

• 2:05:31 — Complainte à la mode ancienne

  
  

  Another archaic, contemplative atmosphere.

• 2:06:12 — Climat

  
  

  Very short and atmospheric.

• 2:43:49 — Le Jardin suspendu

  
  

  This is the bigger destination: The Hanging Garden.

And don’t overlook Choral cistercien pour une Élévation at 31:32. It’s only 1:52. The title means essentially a Cistercian choral for the Elevation—the moment in the Catholic Mass associated with the consecrated elements.

One correction to my previous answer

I called Le Jardin suspendu something I’d put in the “moderate+” category. Having now looked at the actual complete recording and track sequence, I’d distinguish technical difficulty from musical complexity more carefully.

You may find some of Alain’s pieces quite approachable at the keyboard even when their interpretation is sophisticated. That’s exactly why Berceuse, Postlude, Monodie, Lamento and Choral cistercien are such good candidates for you.

And Jean-Baptiste Robin is an excellent guide. This isn’t merely a random YouTube compilation: Brilliant Classics describes it as a three-CD complete-organ-works release, recorded on several important organs, with four world-premiere recordings and historical recordings of Alain himself.

I also think there’s a particularly exciting possibility for your Arturia KeyLab + Yamaha P-125 + iPad/Ableton setup: we could take Monodie or Berceuse, look at the actual score, and reconstruct it on your synthesizer while preserving Alain’s modal/mystical character rather than turning it into generic ambient music.

If you want, let’s start with the 1:36:42 Berceuse. It is probably the perfect first Alain piece for you to actually play.