Auguste Durand was an organist who became a publisher. His firm, Durand & Cie, went on to publish Debussy and Ravel. Long before that, he wrote a salon piece for piano, the Première Valse, Op. 83, which sold enormously and was played in every parlor with a piano.
This track turns the waltz into Christus factus est, the gradual for Holy Thursday (“Christ became obedient unto death”). It’s an odd marriage, but it works. The tune turns out to be hymn-like once you slow it down. Without the waltz rhythm, it’s a lovely, earnest melody, and on flute and harp it sounds a bit like a church on a weekday afternoon.