In addition to the influeneces of these inordinately gifted teachers, Alain was also affected by occurrences outside the sometimes stale confines of the Paris Conservatoire.

The Alain family often enjoyed visiting the Valloires Abbey in the Somme region for a few days of rest.

It was one such visit in 1930 that inspired one Jehan's many dreamy and enchanting works for the organ, Postlude pour l'Office de Complies, wherein the Gregorian Compline chants weave freely in and out of a dreamy lacework of lullaby-like chords.

The Gregorian influence was to remain with him as he would often utilise the Gregorian modes as a basis for his tonalities and would sometimes write in a style evocative of plainsong: Deux Chorals (Dorien et Phrygien), Ballade (en Mode Phrygien), Monodie, Litanies.

In 1931, he attended the Paris Colonial Exhibition and there he was introduced to the music, dance and philosophies of the Far-East.

It was these influences which led to works such as the Deux Danses a Agni Yavishta (two whimsical "fire dances" - Agni Yavishta being the Hindu god of fire) and Le Jardin Suspendu (a charming, dreamy work modelled on a chaconne).

Among other influences were jazz (eg, the first and third of the Trois Danses contain jazz-like rhythms) and on the other end of the spectrum, a revival in interest of Baroque and other early music.

For many years of his too short life, his art was "the only form of happiness" and he sought expression in other forms as well as music, including drawing and poetry.

He carried with him, a small book with blank pages on which he could draw, write or compose.

For the latter, he carried a special five-nibbed pen in order to quickly draw manuscript lines on which to write his musical ideas or he would even just hurriedly scribble them out on the blank pages.

Frequently, his manuscript

scores would be accompanied with a quote or drawing or sometimes both.

In 1935, Alain married his childhood love, Madeline Payan, but this sadly caused a great rift in his family, taking many years to heal.

Jehan and Madeline had three children in what were to become increasingly difficult times.

Jehan was constantly pressed for time trying to support his family whilst living, as much as he could, as a professional musician.

Much of his music was written during any spare moment he had - during train trips or even surreptitiously during classes at the Conservatoire.

The stressful situations of living basically worsened over the last remaining years of his life. In 1937, whilst on holiday in the French Alps, his sister Odile (then aged only 23) was killed in a mountaineering accident whilst trying to save their younger brother, Olivier, from a fall.

Jehan's anguish and grief over her death suddenly became more accentuated by what was to become one of the most extraordinary and unique pieces of music in the repertoire, Litanies, which he had completed only a few days before Odile's death.

A piece, which in early drafts was almost comical in nature, evolved into an agonised cry for help in the form of a prayer violently thrown before his God.

Litanies is still played the world over, often heard, often misunderstood.

Still more extraordinary is that in the same week he completed Litanies, he

had also completed another highly significant work, Deuils.

The death of Odile also served as a grim reminder to his own fears that he too, might encounter a premature and tragic death.

Indeed, little else can be said of Deuils (the second of the Trois Danses) but that it was a chilling premonition of his own tragic end.

His last known work was an unfinished orchestration of this monumental trilogy, the Trois Danses.

Alain's fellow students and collegues would remember him as something of a daredevil on the motorcylce and would partake of wild rides around the streets of Paris and St Germain-en-Laye.

So it was as a dispatch rider in the 8th French tank division in World War Two, that Jehan would often volunteer for dangerous missions during the Belgium campaign.

Obviously the chance to be free and alone for a short time could not have been far from his mind as doubtless it would have been the same for any soldier fighting for their country under such despairing conditions.

On June 20th, 1940, he accepted an assignment to check on the enemy advance at the eastern side of Saumur and it was at Le Petit-Puy that he ran into a German patrol.

With his creativity at it's height, it was on June 20th, 1940, that Jehan Alain, organist, composer and cavalryman defending his country, fell with a bullet through his heart.