Transcendent Simon Rattle : Messiaen Éclairs sur l’Au-delà, LSO Barbican

Sir Simon Rattle conducted Messiaen Éclairs sur l’Au-delà with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, London, an even bigger occasion for some than the previous night's season opener, an all-British gala featuring Emily Howard, Colin Matthews and William Walton. (Please see Robert Hugill's review here). Rattle's British music credentials are very strong indeed. He's close to Matthews and has done lots of Walton. (Please read my review of Rattle conducting Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with the LSO just a few weeks ago). Rattle's committment to Olivier Messiaen is even stronger. British audiences took to Messiaen very early on, to the extent that he's influenced British music (think George Benjamin)  and Rattle was one of the first to bring Messiaen's larger scale works to mass attention. He conducted Éclairs sur l’Au-delà when he was with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (his recording is one of the better ones, bar Myunwhun Chung, both eclipsing by far Zubin Mehta's prosaic approach). Later he did Éclairs sur l’Au-delà with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.  Quite probably Éclairs sur l’Au-delà  is a Rattle signature piece not only because he likes doing it but because he understands Messiaen's unorthodox sensibility. With Messiaen, you need to share Messiaen's wonder at the miracle of life, and value the humility (and humour) behind the majestic extravaganzas.

Not for nothing does the traverse begin with the Apparition du Christ glorieux where long brass lines stretch as if into infinity. Rattle makes them glow : think of the rays of light which illuminate images of Christ risen from the dead.  Literally, lightning over the world. To a practicising Catholic like Messiaen, that's the central message of faith : "For God so loved the world he gave his only-begotten Son". Hence the shimmering but steady pace, firmly defined, without sentimentality. This section is amplified by the two which follow, La constellation du Sagittaire and L’oiseau-lyre et la ville-fiancée. One evokes the constellations in the universe, with powerful chords whose metallic resonance suggests great distances and things not of this earth, preparing us for the lively dance of the lyrebirds. Messiaen's use of birdsong is not novelty, but rooted firmly in his core beliefs about the cosmos. Birds, he said, descended from dinosaurs, and have been on this planet longer than man. The thousands of species attest to the variety of evolution.  Jerky, quirky figures, darted at wild angles : the movement of birds, closely observed by an man who spent his life learning from them - yes, learning, for Messiaen was humble. To him, even the smallest  and most vulnerable creatures had value because they reflected the Creator's love for the pure and fragile. Rattle understands the freedom and originality in this music and the way it transcends conventional form. Messiaen's students were taught to think for themselves and to create, not to be tied to rigid formulae.

In Les élus marqués du sceau, referring to the Book of Revelation and its prophecy of survival in the Apocalypse. Nothing triumphalist here, for Messiaen or for Rattle. Swirling textures with bittersweet details. The serenity of Demeurer dans l’amour suggests redemption to come.  Nothing "romantic" in this love, for it is divine love, between mankind and a higher power.

The fanfares of  Les Sept Anges aux sept trompettes represent the seven angles with seven trumpets who appear at the End of Time, when the earth is rent asunder.  Wooden, hollow, metallic sounds, thudding percussion, crashing gongs. Rattle understands the conection between Éclairs sur l’Au-delà  and Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, another work which he has conducted memnorably many times.  (Please read my review of one Rattle performance, though I've written extensively on the piece). This gives context to the next section, Et Dieu essuiera toute larme de leurs yeux.  From near silence, the sound of birdsong in the winds, and rustling vibrations in the strings.  (Remember the symbolism of birds to Messiaen). A vaguely hymn-like anthem on horns was cut across by the liveliness of the solo flute, sparkling with freshness and freedom.  The birds in this section refer to the idea of evolution, dinosaurs being reborn as birds. A tender, loving performance by the LSO principals.

After this interlude, Messiaen returns to the heavens with Les étoiles et la gloire, in their majesty, and then back to the birds with Plusieurs oiseaux des arbres de vie.  From the lowest timbres in the orchestra came brighter outbursts, exploratory figures growing in confidence, cheered by tiny bird-like figures in the winds and percussion (songs and darting rhythms).  Typically Messiaen zany exuberance.  The reference in Plusieurs oiseaux des arbres de vie is to the image of Christ and the Tree of Life, filled with birds : an image of growth and renewal, shelter and abundant life.  Again, humour, with a  slightly comical passage, which may perhaps represents the ghosts of clumsy dinosaurs, now born again.

With the drama of Le chemin de l’invisible, the symphony continues on its journey. And a symphony it is, despite its eleven sections which together form a traverse towards a resolution.  Angular, wild rhythms, like the movemnts of many birds rushing en masse, fanfares and long, circular arcs suggesting ebb and flow. Rattle doesn't lose sight of the destination. The lush textures were propelled by a sense of movement, unrushed but untoppable. Éclairs sur l’Au-delà was Messiaen's last major work, written as he approached the end of his life. This affects interpretation : miss this and miss the whole point.  Ever a realist, Messiaen understood mortality, but, imbued by faith, he contemplated the future. Unlike Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum which ponders the fate of mankind, Éclairs sur l’Au-delà is personal : a man facing what is to come to all, no matter how exalted. That's why I like Rattle's Messiaen, because  it's human scale, and humane. Le chemin de l'invisble ends with a crash but leads to Le Christ, lumière du Paradis, with which Éclairs sur l’Au-delà  began.  Full cycle, alpha and omega. This structure matters, given Messiaen's faith.  No-one wants to die, everyone worries about the unknown and leaving those one loves, but Messiaen drew comfort from the idea that death is not an end but a kind of rebirth, and union with God.  In the serenity of this final section, the long lines evoked eternity, horizons without end. The LSO strings seemed to shimmer with a preternatural glow, Rattle always aware of the transfiguration that would have meant so much to the composer.  Whatever ones' own beliefs, this is powerfully spiritual, and Rattle's approach deeply convincing. 

Joyous Messiaen From the Canyons to the Stars.... Oramo, BBCSO

Messiaen in Bryce Canyon

Prom 13, Olivier Messiaen Des canyons aux étoiles... (From the Canyons to the Stars...). Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. One day, I want to hear this outdoors, with the sky above,  surrounded by endless horizons. Sure, the sound quality wouldn't please nit-picking audiophiles, but those who love music might understand.  As the composer himself observed, when you are in a canyon, the only way to look is upwards, towards the stars.  In Paris, he spent much of his time in Saint-Sulpice, cramped up high above the nave in the organ loft.  In Bryce Canyon, Utah, he experienced a “cathedral” of another kind, where the vast stone walls of the canyon rose up like walls, enclosing space, but opened, roofless, to the skies. Direct communion with the universe and all its wonders!  Messiaen was a visionary, for whom all creation was a celebration of a God who made the universe and  its wonders.  From the Canyons to the stars.... is Messiaen's response, creating in music a panorama of sounds, textures and colours.

Messiaen's"canyon", isn't just a literal depiction of landcape, but a visionary communion with creation and its Creator. This is no minor achievement. From the Canyons to the Stars..... is nearly two hours long, a series of 12 individual sections, but together they form an epic journey.  Just as the colours in a landscape change with changes in natural light, the traverse is a reflection of the passage of time. "Man hasn’t been on this earth that long”, Messiaen said. "Before us there were prehistoric monsters, but in between there were birds". And before birds and dinosaurs, the geology of the Earth itself. The very character of From the Canyons to the stars.... is shaped by these concepts. The orchestra isn't huge. but each instrument is used for maximum effect. The smallest instrument in the orchestra, the piccolo, plays an important role, just as the smallest bird in a dawn chorus can be heard distinctively.

The range, too, is eclectic. Messiaen even created a new instrument, the geosphere, where actual rocks are placed in a flat drum  and shaken, the earth thus employed to make "earth sounds" in a concert hall environment. Earth sounds everywhere-the wind machine, the thunderboard,  tubular bells which suggest the flow of water, wooden blocks beaten together.  Sections for orchestra are balanced with sections for solo instruments: Nicolas Hodges (piano), Martin Owen (horn), David Hockings and Alex Neal, (xylorimba and glockenspiel). These unite the instrumental logic. The piano is a percussion instrument, the horn's sounds created by human breathing, the xylomarimba a percussion instrument whose sounds reverberate through tubes,like lungs, the glockenspiel a fragile predecessor of the piano. From the Canyons to the stars.... is big because its subject is big, but the foundations are strong, and logical. 

In the first part, starting with Le Désert the parameters are set out.  The brass carved out firm shapes, the piano (possibly representing man), was clearly defined, the sounds of the landscape swirling around.  Rhythms darted at odd angles, but were purposeful. Messiaen observed how birds move on the ground, confounding predators. Sometimes they creep quietly on the ground, but sudden fly off unpredictably. That’s how they survive. Thus the jerky changes of direction, and sudden leaps from activity to silence, large blocks juxtaposed against fast-flying fragments. Oramo handled the shape well, bringing out the originality that is so fundamental to Messiaen performance practice.  He has a good feel for the zany, quirky character in this music. His Turangalîla-Symphonie was wonderful because he doesn't tame the wildness. (Please read Sublimated sex in theTurangalila Symphony here).  He also gets the "technicolor" moments in Messiaen, as the climaxes in this performance showed.  Cedar Breaks et le don de craint ended with style, and Zion Park et la cité céleste.  even more expansive, concluded with such élan that it was clear what Messiaen meant : the glories of nature are a foretaste of the glories of Heaven.

Nicolas Hodges' solos captured the spirit,too. For a moment, time seemed to stand still, while the piano does a “display dance” like a bird showing off its plumage. Martin Owen’s horn seemed to be exploring the vast cavern of the Royal Albert Hall, repeating itself more quietly, as if from a distance. The glockenspiel and xylomarimba solos were expressive, like birds or animals from cover in the landscape of the wider percussion, treasured all the more because their appearances are so fleeting.

Albert Hall photos: Roger Thomas/Messiaen in Bryce Canyon: Yvonne Loriod

Sublimated sex : Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie, Oramo BBCSO

Sakari Oramo conducted the BBC SO in Messiaen Turangalîla-Symphonie at the Barbican,  yesterday. Sandwiched between Bernard Haitink's Mahler and Bruckner concerts this week, tickets didn't sell as well as they should have. Luckily, the  broadcast is on BBC Radio 3.  With Cynthia Millar playing the ondes martenot and Steven Osbormne on piano, this was class.  How I wished I hadn't chickened out of the long commute and returned my tickets.  This is an extraordinarily "visual" piece: you can't know it if you haven't, at least once, participated in performance, even if you're just listening.  It's a communal event, like a Pagan Mass.  

One of Sakari Oramo's many strengths is his sense of humour, so this Turangalîla-Symphonie was wonderfully zany, capturing the crazy free spirits in the piece without losing the tension that keeps the whole, sprawling panorama together through ten sections, each clearly distinct.  A vivacious performance, the BBCSO on message and lively.  

The seeds of Turangalîla were planted when Messiaen and Yvonne  Loriod fell desperately in love, but, being strictly religious, they didn't sleep together til they married decades later.  Turangalîla-Symphonie, the fruit of their passion, is sex, sublimated in music. Not for nothing the two principal solo parts are written for ondes martenot and piano, the piece operating as a dialogue for two poles united in a dazzling landscape.  Boulez adored Messiaen, and vice versa, but this was the one piece that Boulez could not bring himself to conduct. "Brothel music", he quipped, which is true, for the piece is explicitly erotic.  Since Messiaen was Boulez's father figure, it must have felt like watching your parents at it. You know it happened, or you wouldn't have been born, but......

When Turangalîla premiered in 1948, one writer  referred to its “fundamental emptiness… appalling melodic tawdriness…..a tune for Dorothy Lamour in a sarong, a dance for Hindu hillbillies”. He had a point. If ever there was music in Technicolor, this is it, complete with cinematic swirls of the ondes martenot.  These days, when we hear the ondes martenot, we don’t necessarily associate it with cutting-edge Varèse, but with Béla Lugosi. They don’t even make movies like that anymore. Not even B movies.   Perhaps Turangalîla suffers from having been premiered in the wrong time and place. In 1948, Messiaen was largely unknown in the United States, so Koussevitsky's commission was very high profile indeed. The premiere was given by Leonard Bernstein, who probably relished the Hollywoodesque extravagance of the piece. But there's a hidden background.  Bernstein was influenced, indirectly, by Nadia Boulanger, who thought music ended with mid-period Stravinsky, and even turned her back on him when he deviated from diktat.  She could not stand Messiaen: they operated rival salons, hers catering mainly to English speakers, his more liberal and "European".   Yvonne Loriod was originally a Boulanger protégé, but when she took up with Messiaen, Boulanger cut her dead.  So perhaps the world wasn't ready for Turangalîla  in 1948.

For Turangalîla-Symphonie is a shockingly modern work. If at times it seems to parody the idea of Romantic Music as defined by Hollywood, why not? Messiaen's values stemmed from medieval traditions of religious ecstasy, which gave 19th-century French Romanticism a particular flavour, different to Austro-German tradition.   Messiaen was not "doing Hollywood".   Like other Europeans emerging from the hardships of war and rationing,  Messaien was responding to the liberating idea of uninhibited exuberance. Turangalîla-Symphonie would have seemed like an explosion of blinding colour after years of repression. The sensuality also connected to long-standing French fascination  with exotic, non-European cultures.

Wild as the piece is, though, it is also sophisticated. Its complex rhythms need to be played with vigorous precision, so the textures stay vividly bright and clear.  In Messiaen, colour is essential.  The best performances I've heard have had a taut savagery that brings out the muscular energy in the piece. Bad performances are chemically coloured soup.  Fortunately, the BBC SO can let their hair down without losing their innate stylishness. Fundamental to this piece, and to Messiaen's work in general, is the powerful pulse, often expressed in craggy ostinato.   Geology in music, maybe: it represents a life force, nature itself and, for Messiaen, derived from God.  Thus Oramo shaped the crazy flights of wild abandon without losing sight of their place in the structure.  Messiaen didn't use the ondes martenot by accident: it's an instrument that plays with unseen forces of physics and sound.  The protagonists in Turangalîla-Symphonie  are ecstatic because they've found release. They wouldn't be transformed if they hadn't had something to be liberated from in the first place.

Lovely L'Ascension beforehand, too, demonstrating how far  Turangalîla-Symphonie propels Messiaen forward. 

Rattle Messiaen Bruckner LSO Couleurs de la cité céleste

Sir Simon Rattle conducted Messiaen and Bruckner with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Hall, London.  Rattle's love for these composers shone forth, inspiring the LSO to respond with greater verve than they've sometimes performed of late.

An astonishingly vivid Messiaen Couleurs de la cité céleste (1963). This work doesn't quite get the attention it deserves, coming between truly exceptional works like Chronochromie and Et Exspecto resurrectionem Mortuorum, Read here about Rattle's Et exspecto in 2011.  In comparison,  Couleurs de la cité céleste seems like a typical Messiaen study in light and colour. The piece shimmers, resplendent and glowing as if it were made of gemstones refracting light. Yet it also reflects the cosmological belief that, at the Apocalypse, the world will be destroyed by cataclysm. yet above the chaos, a vision will appear in the heavens: the celestial city of eternal life.  

Rattle demonstrated the innate strength that underpins the firm foundations on whuch  Couleurs de la cité céleste is built. Conductors who think Messiaen is self indulgent excess don't understand the composer at all. Witness a shamefully self indulgent Turangalîla-Symphonie (definitely not Rattle) not too long ago. The piece begins with short, sharp dissonant shards, their impact marked with carefully observed intervals.  When Boulez conducted it with Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2008, these chords seemed monumental. Rattle captured that same sense of dramatic portent. When the "bells" of percussion rang out they felt like reiterations of those first chords, marking a stage of transition.   
 
Just as with Buddhist mandalas and Sanskrit wheels, the symmetry in  Couleurs de la cité céleste affirms meaning. Messiaen observed that birds descended from dinosaurs: hence the presence of birds at the End of Time, not so much in bird song as in the jerky angular movements birds make when they're on the ground, which Pierre-Laurent Aimard defined with great insight. Soon, we know, these earthbound birds will take flight.  Symmetry, too, in the instrumentation: three clarinets, three trombones, three percussion instruments forming a central core.  Scurrying percussive figures gathered speed, hurrying the music along. Expansive brass chords, surging forth. Massive tam tam crashes, then sudden silence. which in this performance felt suitably, like a shock. Rattle makes telling connections between Couleurs de la cité céleste and Et Exspecto resurrectionem Mortuorum.

Bruckner Symphony no 8, which followed, was conducted and played with majesty. Listening to Bruckner after Messiaen reveals different perspectives. Emotionally I was still in the "mountains" of Messiaen's apocalyptic ecstasy, so I picked up on details I don't usually hear in the grand design. Nonetheless, that's good. Often i think of Bruckner the man, an oddball figure lurking behind his huge structures. If this concert signifies LSO's future with Rattle, we have lots of good things to look forward to.   

Boulez Mass

Announced in the French press: "Un hommage sera rendu jeudi à 16H00 en l'église Saint-Sulpice à Paris au compositeur et chef d'orchestre français Pierre Boulez, décédé mardi dernier à 90 ans à Baden-Baden en Allemagne, a annoncé lundi sa famille." 

Below, a clip from Messiaen's Le Banquet celeste, played by the chief organist Marcel Dupré, a contemporary of the composer.  I don't know whether there  will be a full  Mass or a memorial, but I suspect it will be a Mass, and it's a good place to remember  StTrinité is smaller and won'tfir enough people. Pierre Boulez.  Please see my post on the relationship between Messiaen and Boulez, and the church of Sainte Trinité.


St. Sulpice Paris Pipe Organ Dupré Plays Messiaen by DeliaStephens

Boulez Mahler 2, informed by Messiaen

Pierre Boulez stands, in silence, after the conclusion of his Mahler Symphony no 2  at the Philharmonie, Berlin, in 2005.  Look at Boulez's expression. The music hasn't ended simply because the notes have faded away.  the symphony ends gloriously but victory hasn't been reached without struggle.  Der Mensch liegt in größter Not! Der r Mensch liegt in größter Pein!  Not even angels can turn the soul away from God. Boulez's approach in this performance, with the Staatskapelle Berlin, is steely, craggy and utterly determined.  He understands the significance of the first movement and the stages through which the soul goes on its journey. A quiet but intense reading, absolutely true to the composer and to his work as a whole entity.

Today, listening after Boulez's own death this week,  what struck me is the relationship this performance  has to Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Mahler isn't writing about the death of one man but about mankind's search for meaning.  Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum refers to the End of Time, when an angel shall sound a trumpet asnd the earth will be rent asunder. Cataclysmic stuff, bringing from Messiaen music that's almost geological in its cragginess - no strings, only percussion and winds, Boulez's interpretation  is informed by his knowledge of Messiaen and perhaps, too, by his own formidable knowledge of music history. When the trombones blast, and the distant trumpets are heard, we think of the Angel of the Book of Revelation,  as Mahler almost certainly did,  and when we hear the piccolo details, we can figure better what they might mean. Obviously my appreciation of this performance is informed by my fascination with Messiaen and with Et Exspecto resurrectionum mortuorum and the Quartet for The End of Time. Read some of what I've written before HERE and HERE.and much more.

But my response is also affected by thinking so much this week about Boulez and Messiaen.  They had a bond like father and son, which ran even deeper than many real-life father and son relationships. A few years ago, someone made a snide, nasty remark about Boulez disliking Turangalîla-and falling out temporarily with Messaien.  It was the usual silly notion of Boulez as demon. Pierre-Laurent Aimard was present and hit the roof.  Aimard, who was Messiaen's "second son", said he'd heard about it direct from Messiaen himself. Since when do fathers and sons always agree? Messiaen used the term Tuer le père which simply means that you can't grow up unless you stand on your own feet.  Messiaen knew Boulez's abilities and wouldn't have dreamed of holding him back. The scrap didn't last. Soon after, Boulez heard that Messiaen was looking for a balofon. Messiaen found one and carried it, as a surprise, up to the organ loft at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité where Messaien played every day. Messiaen was so happy he had tears of joy even when telling Aimard about it years later.  Creative minds aren't constrained: copying is a mark of mediocrity.  Healthy relationships are not threatened by fear of change.  And so Messiaen and Boulez will continue to enlighten us long after they are gone|

Messiaen Et exspecto Prom 69 Chailly Leipzig Gewandhaus

Superb Mahler Sixth Riccardo Chailly, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at the BBC Proms, Prom 69. Such a stunning performance that it would be wrong to do something superficial. Plenty of places to go if you want shallow, but it would pain me. After a year and a half of indifferent to horrible Mahler performances, at last something really worth listening to!  So please come back to this site tomorrow. UPDATE ! Chailly's Leipzig Mahler 6 HERE. In the meantime, I'll comment on Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

This Prom (BBC Prom 69) was unusual because it wasn't loud. No strings attached in more ways than one! The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra have one of the most gorgeous string sections in the world, Without string sections, orchestras are "dead". So Chailly and the Leipzigers understand what Et exspecto means. It was commissioned by the French Government to commemorate those who died in the 1939-45 war, who would never return.

Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum is a companion piece to The Quartet for the End of Time. (read more here).  The quartet was first performed in a prisoner of war camp on broken instruments in freezing conditions.  Hence the spartan economy with which Et exspecto is orchestrated. You don't hear the strings, but you listen "because" they are not there. Chailly and the Leipzigers also respect the long silences Messiaen specified between movements. At first, the Proms audience didn't know what to expect and coughed and fidgetted but then twigged Chailly had his head bowed for a reason. These silences were meant for contemplation. Messiaen, being devout, understood the Stations of the Cross in Catholic practice, each Station a kind of scena to be meditated on before going onto the next. Respecting this silence between movements is part of the progress of the work as a whole.

Contemplation in a work as shockingly dramatic as this? It's perfectly in order for any conductor to go for the overwhelming power of the piece, but the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra isn't brassy and showy like some orchestras are. Volume isn't what they are about. Their Et exspecto was gentle, but from an orchestra like this, violence would not be sincere.  What's more, Et exspecto isn't really about Death but about resurrection. The earth is torn apart by cataclysm, but the end result is eternal life and union with God, or whatever higher force you might conceptualize. Et exspecto is extreme: hence the crashing cymbals and wailing brass. But gloomy it's not.

There is no such thing as "non-interpretation" in any form of music. You can't even look at a score without interpreting how the notes might sound in relation to each other. Chailly's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum may be different, but he's arrived at it by interpreting why it might be the way it's written. "Music is not in the notes" said Mahler. It's why the notes are put together.
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Here is what I wrote about Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum last year at the time of the Tsunami in Japan.  Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.


Because Olivier Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrection mortuorum is about the End of the World, it's scary to listen to at this time (Japanese Tsunami). But maybe this is, after all, the time to listen to what it really means. There is a deliberate Japanese connection, since Messiaen visited and loved Japan.  He is emphasizing universal spiritual values which apply to all, Christian or not.

Note the orchestration. No strings! The Quartet for the End of Time can be heard as a prototype. Twenty years later, and after nuclear war became a reality, Messiaen goes for maximium power. Massed percussion forms the bedrock of Et exspecto, for it represents the earth itself, ripped asunder by the Apocalypse. Specifically Messiaen uses six giant Asian gongs, more powerful than tam tams. Gongs call the faithful to order. Ritual progression is very much part of this music's structure, so gongs mark stages in its raga-like plateaux. Metallic percussion, too, rather than timpani, for dissonance. Pitched cowbells, and a gigantic set of tubular bells which ring out like an organ, the composer's personal instrument. Against the percussion,woodwinds create birdsong or the sound of wings in flight. Brasses range from small D trumpet to Wagnerian tuba. What would the Final Judgement be without trumpets?  Messiaen wants strident, not resonant.This work is, after all, about waking the dead.

The ritual character of Et exspecto is underlined by quotations from different parts of the Bible. It's a Via Crucis which unfolds in stages. First: "From the deepest abyss I cry, Lord hear me!", which is what Jesus is supposed to have called out in his time of agony. Massive dark chords like tectonic plates, shifting inexorably. The brass like the rumbling of some deep fissure, which explodes into wild, screaming chords and ends in a single, piercing shriek. Hearing this after Sendai is painful. Then silence, extremely important as it marks an invisible, inaudible transit.

In the second section, a moment of calm reassurance, for Christ has risen from the dead. Diaphanous textures, which grow into quirky, jerky angles. The movement of birds, intuitively darting in crazy angles so they can't be caught. As Messiaen the ornithologist would have understood. Birds are fragile, but they evolved from dinosaurs, and survived. Even greater stillness marks the beginning of the third section, but now the tubular bells toll, calling like the bells in a church. The woodwinds describe an even more powerful bird theme - a bird from the Amazon jungle, apparently, which has existed outside civilization. Messiaen is referring to creation itself, connecting the Beginning and End of Time. In Christian belief, an Angel blows a trumpet and graves open. Hence the darkening "earthquake fissure" theme.

Wild,  jerky figures associated with the "birds" start the fourth section, which soon  the percussion explodes. When these gongs crash,  it feels like blinding light, a shocking, flashing thunderbolt in sound. At this moment, I can't help but think of the cataclysmic light of a nuclear explosion. Ironically, it's the Resurrection, start of a new era.

The final movement almost defies description. Powerful ostinato, gongs and blocked percussion, repeated over and over, driving the point in so there's no mistaking its force. Gradually the music turns, like a juggernaut. The image of an eternal wheel, perhaps propelling the music ever forward. Messiaen uses the quotation "And I heard the voice of an immense crowd". It's an immense crowd becauase all who have died in the past have been raised from death and suffering. (That's assuming God doesn't discriminate between faiths). That's why the whole orchestra marches forth in unison. Gradually the pace builds up to an overwhelming climax. It's not a march in conventional symphonic terms but owes its structure, perhaps, to Japanese gagaku, which inspired Messiaen's ground-breaking Sept Haïkaï, written in 1962, soon after Messiaen returned from Japan, and two years before Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

In Sept Haïkaï,  the image is a “floating gate”, the torii at the Miyajima shrine in Japan. The red arches stand alone in the sea, as if suspended between earth and sky. It is a gate, but to what? The arches stand amid a panoramic open  landscape. As the weather changes, as time changes, the surroundings change dramatically. Photo by H Orihashi. Read more about Sept Haïkaï HERE.


For Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum means "In expectation of the resurrection of the dead". It's not meant to be oppressive or gloomy. It was commissioned as a memorial to the French war dead, but Messiaen was  having no truck with militarism or even national glory. Instead he comes up with something so unique and so universal he wanted it performed in the Alps. So if the Christian form of this piece bothers you, remember that for Messiaen, God resided in Nature, and mountains were Nature's cathedrals.

Boulez Pli selon Pli Ensemble Intercontemporain London

Pierre Boulez conducted Pli selon Pli at the Royal Festival Hall with Barbara Hannigan and Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Lucerne Festival Academy Ensemble. It was the apogee of the South Bank Exquisite Labyrinth weekend. Pli selon Pli contradicts assumptions. It's modern, but delicately beautiful, structurally intricate, yet profoundly emotional. Instruments like celesta, harps, guitar, mandolin and bell-like percussion. How lyrical percussion can be! Strange, limpid semi-harmonies, not simplistic dissonance. Understand Pli selon Pli, and hear how far off the mark myths about modern music (and Boulez) really are.

As vocal music, Pli selon Pli is even more remarkable.  It's based on five poems by Stéphane Mallarmé but Mallarmé isn't a conventional poet, so straight word setting would be pointless. Even translations are futile, because so much depends on the sound and shape of words, images and patterns of expression, and above all, the creative response of the reader. Boulez's Pli selon Pli is thus a highly intuitive "Portrait" of Mallarmé, built round "Improvisations" (all his words)  inspired by three poems, encased by two equally visionary movements.  Unlike conventional song the vocal part is so integrated into the whole that it seems to flow, silently, as an undercurrent beneath the orchestra, only emerging at critical moments. Boulez's approach to voice is so unique that he's unlikely to do opera in any recognizable sense of the term.

Pli selon Pli begins with a single explosive burst. It's significant for the work is built on single chords and cells, every colour kept as pure as possible. As in impressionist painting where brushstrokes shine, as in Debussy, whose influence hovers implicitly. At the core of the orchestra is the celesta, behind the conductor, five harps behind it, supplemented by xylophones, marimba, beaten bells and piano used as a percussion instrument. To the conductor's right, guitar and mandolin. Theya ren't noisy, flashy instruments but central to the whole piece. The celesta is often used because it has a "celestial", other worldly sound, much less dominant than piano. The guitar and mandolin may represent something more humble than, say, violins, evoking the image of poet or troubador. Vocal instruments, in their own way.

With textures as diaphanous as these, every note counts: careful listening mandatory. This is chamber music on a large scale, where listening and silences are part of the process. It feels as if the music is beiung turned over and examined from different angles. Mallarmé's first poem, Don (Gift), has images, but no grammar. Words are separated by spaces filled by dots, which are as essential to meaning as the words themselves. . Boulez expresses this with sequences of single chords, rippling around the voice. You're listening to the spaces and thinking, while the voice stretches forwards, searching and exploring. In this first poem, meaning is suggested by images of rock-like harshness - basalt. lava, winter - contrasted with images of ephemera - foam on waves, memory, loss. When Hannigan sings the word "hiver" (winter) the single notes around her prickle like penetrating frost, the sea itself frozen hard. Ce lac dur oublié que hante sous le givre le transparent glacier".

The Improvisation on Une dentelle s'ablouit combines Mallarmé's puzzles with Boulez's intricate structures, this time in reverse. Like lace, Hannigan's lines trill and twist - horrendously difficult to sing - but behind her the music unravels. Whispering sibilants of cymbals being brushed, a fairly long passage for maracas. Then, as if brought to life by the line flotte plus qu'il ensevelit, the flutes emerge floating the vocal line that's subsumed behind the orchestra. Deftly placed silences again - a long gap between "au creux néant" and musicien" to emphasize dormant creation. Similarly, emphasis on the word "le sein", the key word in "Selon nul ventre que le sein filial on aurait pu naître". Few composers are quite this sensitive to meaning.

Mallarmé throws a wild card with multiple puns on vowels in A la Nue Accablante Tu but Boulez parries with sound that extend the vowels and cut across them with sharp sibilants.  Again, the hard images from the beginning of the cycle, "basse de basalte et des laves", Hannigan's voice intoning darkly, her legato rising and falling like the waves of the sea implicit in the symbols of foam and shipwrecks. The orchestral cells break into patterns that might suggest water, light, churning like the motions of waves. Languid but purposeful.  Gradually a new perspective emerges. Trumpets, tuba, tubular bells, so reminiscent of Messiaen that it feels like a deliberate reference, especially given the meaning of this work as a whole. If Boulez is referring the penultimate section of Et exapecto resurrectionem mortuorum, it gives Pli selon Pli even greater resonance.

Lovely passages for solo celesta, for the double basses, lower strings, and violins, but guitar and mandolin return to the forefront again. The last movement, almost wholly orchestral but for one line, feels like song, with endless choruses from different parts of the orchestra. Arpeggiatos and individual cells but unstoppable forward thrust : the image of waves and the sea. The single vocal line is ironic. "Un peu profound ruisseau" sings Hannigan, "calomnié la mort", stressing gaps betyween words, and shrieking wildly up the scale, as if the line is being drowned by what the orchestra is singing. Towards the end, she no longer sings but exhales, as she did at the beginning of thee whole piece, the word "la mort" barely gasped, as if it's too much to contemplate. As Pierre-Laurent Aimard said during the afternoon piano sessions, one of Boulez's signatures is reverberance that continues long after a performer stops playing. The "music" continues to resound, and should be listened to, as it's part of the whole. Alas, someone started clapping too soon. 

I'm sorry I haven't done an instant review on this as I haven''t been well, but Pli selon Pli is music that repays reflection "fold by fold".  I don't know if I have time to write up the other concerts in thsi excellent series - especially the Aimard/Stefanovich masterclasses and the Eötvös/London Sinfonietta concert with fantastic Clio Gould Anthèmes II. But read Mark Berry in Boulezian instead HERE and HERE. 

Email from a friend :

Seems Boulez did Pli selon Pli from 21 September onwards in Amsterdam, Milan AND Turin, Munich and Paris before London. It had been performed in Lucerne, with just the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra (ie bigger than the LFA Ensemble) on 8 September. No wonder he looked a bit worn out.

You might also like these posts : Full video of Boulez conducting Pli selon Pli in Paris, and an interview with Barbara Hannigan by Ivan Hewett.

Aldeburgh Rattle CBSO Mahler Messiaen

This year's Gala opening evening at Aldeburgh sold out to top, top level Friends within moments. Thousands wanted to hear Simon and Mrs Rattle back with the CBSO, his old band, Aldeburgh regulars for many years.  The choice of  programme was daunting : Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde after Messiaen's Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum. Could any contrast be more extreme? And in a small auditorium like the Maltings at Snape ?

Messiaen dreamed that Et expecto resurrectionum mortuorum could be performed in the mountains of the French Alps, booming across vast valleys. It's probably the most monumental piece in the whole repertoire and can even raise the roof at the Royal Albert Hall. At Snape, it's a wonder Health & Safety didn't intervene. Anyone with migraine or inner ear problems is probably still suffering. 

I've been writing about Messiaen and about Et expecto resurrectionum mortuorum  for years, so please look up this link HERE which leads to other links, so you can keep exploring. Rattle conducted a good Messaien Et exspecto at the Barbican earlier this year, but at Snape sound considerations did make a difference, which you can even hear on the BBC broadcast.

More interesting was Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.  When Magdalena Kožená first started singing Mahler, she didn't seem like a typical Mahler mezzo. On the other hand stereotype delimits.Nothing in the rule book demands dark-hued sobriety. Indeed, as Claudio Abbado showed in Berlin, translucent, shining textures emphasize the uplift in the music. There Anne Sofie von Otter's singing was pure and deeply committed. Diva doesn't sit well in a piece whose whole message is transcendance over worldly pettiness. Kožená's voice is prettier than von Otter's but she hasn't quite the same fierce sense of character. On the other hand, it was clear from this performance that she wasn't herself: her chest sounded constricted. Pacing herself carefully to conserve her reserves, she couldn't let go as she would probably have done in better circumstances. 

Michael Schade has sung the tenor part in Das Lied von der Erde many times: nothing spectacular but also nothing wrong, either. Fair enough, considering that this was the gala opening of a non-Mahler festival and no-one was nit picking. Rattle and the CBSO were the draw and fans would not have been disappointed.

Messiaen Et Exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum Rattle Japan

Six Chernobyls at Fukushima? Worst nightmare scenario. We're all involved, not just those in Japan even if we're not affected because we are all human beings. Those helicopter pilots risking their lives to stop meltdown. Like in the movies only real. And their courage may be in vain.

Because Olivier Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrection mortuorum is about the End of the World, it's scary to listen to at this fragile time. But maybe this is, after all, the time to listen to what it really means. There is a deliberate Japanese connection, since Messiaen visited and loved Japan.  He is emphasizing universal spiritual values which apply to all, Christian or not.

Note the orchestration. No strings! The Quartet for the End of Time can be heard as a prototype. Twenty years later, and after nuclear war became a reality, Messiaen goes for maximium power. Massed percussion forms the bedrock of Et exspecto, for it represents the earth itself, ripped asunder by the Apocalypse. Specifically Messiaen uses six giant Asian gongs, more powerful than tam tams. Gongs call the faithful to order. Ritual progression is very much part of this music's structure, so gongs mark stages in its raga-like plateaux. Metallic percussion, too, rather than timpani, for dissonance. Pitched cowbells, and a gigantic set of tubular bells which ring out like an organ, the composer's personal instrument. Against the percussion,woodwinds create birdsong or the sound of wings in flight. Brasses range from small D trumpet to Wagnerian tuba. What would the Final Judgement be without trumpets?  Messiaen wants strident, not resonant.This work is, after all, about waking the dead.

The ritual character of Et exspecto is underlined by quotations from different parts of the Bible. It's a Via Crucis which unfolds in stages. First: "From the deepest abyss I cry, Lord hear me!", which is what Jesus is supposed to have called out in his time of agony. Massive dark chords like tectonic plates, shifting inexorably. The brass like the rumbling of some deep fissure, which explodes into wild, screaming chords and ends in a single, piercing shriek. Hearing this after Sendai is painful. Then silence, extremely important as it marks an invisible, inaudible transit.

In the second section, a moment of calm reassurance, for Christ has risen from the dead. Diaphanous textures, which grow into quirky, jerky angles. The movement of birds, intuitively darting in crazy angles so they can't be caught. As Messiaen the ornithologist would have understood. Birds are fragile, but they evolved from dinosaurs, and survived. Even greater stillness marks the beginning of the third section, but now the tubular bells toll, calling like the bells in a church. The woodwinds describe an even more powerful bird theme - a bird from the Amazon jungle, apparently, which has existed outside civilization. Messiaen is referring to creation itself, connecting the Beginning and End of Time. In Christian belief, an Angel blows a trumpet and graves open. Hence the darkening "earthquake fissure" theme.

Wild,  jerky figures associated with the "birds" start the fourth section, which soon  the percussion explodes. When these gongs crash,  it feels like blinding light, a shocking, flashing thunderbolt in sound. At this moment, I can't help but think of the cataclysmic light of a nuclear explosion. Ironically, it's the Resurrection, start of a new era.

The final movement almost defies description. Powerful ostinato, gongs and blocked percussion, repeated over and over, driving the point in so there's no mistaking its force. Gradually the music turns, like a juggernaut. The image of an eternal wheel, perhaps propelling the music ever forward. Messiaen uses the quotation "And I heard the voice of an immense crowd". It's an immense crowd becauase all who have died in the past have been raised from death and suffering. (That's assuming God doesn't discriminate between faiths). That's why the whole orchestra marches forth in unison. Gradually the pace builds up to an overwhelming climax. It's not a march in conventional symphonic terms but owes its structure, perhaps, to Japanese gagaku, which inspired Messiaen's ground-breaking Sept Haïkaï, written in 1962, soon after Messaien returned from Japan, and two years before Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.

In Sept Haïkaï,  the image is a “floating gate”, the torii at the Miyajima shrine in Japan. The red arches stand alone in the sea, as if suspended between earth and sky. It is a gate, but to what? The arches stand amid a panoramic open  landscape. As the weather changes, as time changes, the surroundings change dramatically. Photo by H Orihashi. Read more about Sept Haïkaï HERE.

Every time we listen to a piece of music, we're influenced by what's in our lives at the time. All performances are different and most have some insight to offer. I don't think at the moment I could have coped with Myung-Whun Chung's geological version at the Proms in 2008, it's just too graphic. There's a very good Simon Rattle performance available on BBC Radio 3 at the moment, recorded at his recent concert at the Barbican with the LSO. With the Berliner Philharmoniker in Berlin recently he did a marvellously vigorous Mahler 3, which really brought out the mountains and what they mean,, so he could perhaps do Et Exspecto with a similar granitey monumentalism. But I'm glad that he took a more esoteric approach this time, which connects better to the spiritual meaning of the piece. For sure, the spiritual message meant much more to Messaien than the graphics. The all-time best recording remains Pierre Boulez - unsurpassed for its balance of grace and intensity.

For Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum means "In expectation of the resurrection of the dead". It's not meant to be oppressive or gloomy. It was commissioned as a memorial to the French war dead, but Messiaen was  having no truck with militarism or even national glory. Instead he comes up with something so unique and so universal he wanted it performed in the Alps,. So if the Christian form of this piece bothers you, remember that for Messaien, God resided in Nature, and mountains were Nature's cathedrals. So Rattle's Et Exspecto comes at just the right moment, when we need to think about the unprecedented series of disasters facing the people of Japan. While foreigners scramble to leave, a million ordinary Japanese are still out there in the open, without food, water or shelter. They've already lost everything and can't escape.

Aldeburgh Festival 2011

Aldeburgh is unique. It's not an all-Britten all-British festival. It has always been progressive and international. And it's not London. London can often be more provincial than Aldeburgh. as Britten knew very well. If only more Londoners knew their Britten!

The 2011 Aldeburgh Festival brochure is now out, full of excellent things. False controversy about the big first night, which sold out immediately. So what? Simon Rattle is one of the biggest names to come to Aldeburgh in years. He sold out the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican a year before the concerts. And his Aldeburgh programme is exceptional - Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (a Rattle favourite) and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde – extremely perceptive pairing. This would sell out the Royal Albert Hall, so why the fuss about it selling out the tiny Snape auditorium?  It is being broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 which won't be quite so atmospheric, but will mean it's available to all. Let's not be hypocritical. The arts cost money and long-term Aldeburgh patrons have been supporting it for years. And why shouldn't people support whatb they care about?

Aldeburgh also doesn't do Grand Opera, which should come as no surprise to anyone into Britten's aesthetic. The spartan style intensifies the morality, intensifying the stark tensions. The 2011 Aldeburgh Opera is The Rape of Lucretia where the Greek drama concepts are clear. Choruses with major vroles but only one voice each.. What a cast - Angelika Kirschlager as Lucretia, Ian Bostridge (arguably the most intense Britten specialist of all), Susan Gritton,  Peter Coleman-Wright, Christopher Purves, Hilary Summers, Claire Booth and Oliver Knussen conducting.  This travels next to the Holland Festival and to Luxembourg, evidence of Aldeburgh's status in Europe.

Because Aldeburgh's conducive to chamber music and to experiment, it's always supported new music. On Sunday 12/6 there's a Homage to Ligeti. 100 Metronomes for fun but witty, Richard Steinitz for ballast and a series of excellent concerts from early afternoon til midnight. Britten, Rostropovich and the Cello  on 21/6 mixes talk, film and concerts. This year's featured composer is Marco Stroppa, culminating in the final weekend concert. Stroppa's music is being premiered with a new work by Peter Eötvös and Boulez ...explosante-fixe.... London Sinfonietta and Exaudi, so should be good. Other composers featured include Scelsi.

Exaudi are Aldeburgh regulars because their range stretches from early polyphony to the most avant garde work for voice.(The Aldeburgh style in a nutshell). What they're planning this year really is innovative. Everlasting Light is a reflection on Sizewell, where 50 years ago a nuclear reactor was built, turning a fishing village into Brave New World. This performance takes place late in the evening on the beach at Sizewell, blending Ligeti's Lux Aeterna with projections, singing and the landscape itself. Landscape meant a lot to Britten, so the idea of using the land itself as an element in art is very much in keping with the Aldeburgh ethos.

Song people are in for a treat. Matthias Goerne and Pierre-Laurent Aimard are giving the three Schubert collections on 18th, 19th and 20th, with a masterclass on 17th which I'll try to get to, as Goerne's gruff exterior belies exceptional insight and sensitivity. Two James Gilchrist concerts too, including Britten's Les Illuminations, one of the keystones of the repertoire.

Lots of early music too, Bach of course, and a special on Ockeghem's Requiem Mass  Concerts by Les Talens Lyriques and Christopher Rousset. Strangely, these are the main ones being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 this year.  Is it because they're "safe" ? A pity, as Aldeburgh isn't safe in the sense of predictable (and neither is this music if you think about it).

Britten loved visual arts, too, which is why exhibitions are also part of the Aldeburgh scene. This year there's a Philip Langridge tribute, curated by his son Stephen, the opera director. Video and audio clips, photos, personal memorabilia.  Unmisssable! My site carries more on the Aldeburgh  Festival than any other, so enjoy trawling thru posts of past years and related subjects.

For more information, please see  Aldeburgh Music website. 

Elgar Newman Dream of Gerontius

The Blessed John  Henry Newman, now, as John Cardinal Newman is beatified by Pope Benedict. Everyone's trying to second guess why, but it's irrelevant. The real big deal is that Newman is not a typical saint, but a person whose life is an example for the future.

Newman was a man of conscience. He had integrity, and turned his back on family, status and glory. As a Catholic, his career wasn't successful.
He suffered.doubts, conflicts and possibly clinical depression.  He wasn't even that keen on papal infallibility. Yet what got him through was idealism and integrity. 

 No human society has ever existed without spiritual or moral beliefs. So what's wrong if some choose one way or another? Quite possibly being fully human means respecting others' rights. What does militant atheist evangelism prove?

We're all going to die. Even if there's nothing on the other side the fact of mortality affects how we live and feel. Perhaps Cardinal Newman's real miracle is that through The Dream of Gerontius, he's helped millions to face loss and death, and in the process discover the beauty of life.

Elgar's music starts in the world, elegiac, recurrent crescendi full of portent. Gerontius knows he's dying. The violins stir like the fluttering of giant wings. "This strange innermost abandonment", Already, the concerns of the world are eclipsed. Gerontius isn't alone, he's surrounded by a host of immortal presences, all praying support.  Wild surging trumpets, evoking "that sense of ruin which is worse than pain". The man's terrified, hearing "hideous wings" but remembers that this is a journey many have taken before. Huge outburst of choir and orchestra. "Go Forth!" The baritone is the tenor's stronger alter-ego. pulling him onwards. Fairly straightforward piety, so far.

But then something really amazing happens. The transition starts with a beautiful, humble theme which we'll recognize as "the heart subduing melody" the man hears as he's lifted upwards. "I went to sleep", he sings in a matter of fact way, but gradually feels lightness and freedom. "How still it is! I hear no more the busy beat of time" The marvel is that he's safe, cradled by an angel.

It's Gerontius's Guardian Angel, who has taken care of him invisibly since he was born.  "My work is over" she sings, now that she's handing him back to God.  Gerontius's soul wonders why he now feels no fear. "It is because then, thou didst fear...and so for thee the bitterness of death is passed".  To put it plainly, if you have no conscience in life, you'll pay for it in the next world.

Sure enough, they pass the Demons who claim those who've been bad on earth. Wild frenzied, ostinato stabs of brass and percussion. The choir of demons scream. "How sour and uncouth such a dissonance" sings Gerontius's soul. This is Newman being ascetic, and Elgar showing a  sense of humour. What demonic, violently expressive music! Isn't it deliciously manic when the demons snarl "Haha! Haha!"  

As they cross into the Hall of Judgment, the soul hears  "a grand mysterious harmony. It floods me, like the deep and solemn sound of many waters"  Angelic choir, and then peace reigns as the Soul enters the presence of God. The baritone who sang the priestly figure now sings the Angel of Agony, a tougher version of the Guardian Angel. He makes a direct connection between the sufferings of Jesus condemned on the cross.

"Alleluia" sings the soprano piercingly, at the top of her range, and the orchestra follows with a vivid, penetrating fanfare. Now the soul enters purgatory, visualized as "penal waters" of a lake. it's a cosmic lullaby, for while the soul lies in these depths it will be protected by angels and the memories of those left behind on earth.

"Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow" sings the Guardian Angel, "Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial,, and  I will wake thee on the morrow" (meaning the end of time).  Heavenly coda, strings and harp, a sense of uplift.

Hell exists in most cultures. In reality, most evil people get away scot-free. Yet a belief in the Afterlife implies that there are higher powers, divine justice that can't be bought or manipulated. The bad don't get away with it though they think they can. This has implications for how we live. Not that heaven or hell is any deterrent for those who really don't care. But it is hope for those who do.

Explicitly, the Angel of Agony sings of  "Souls, who are in prison, calm and patient, wait for Thee",  In life, we're all in a kind of prison and suffer. We have a responsibility to do good, but sometimes evil overwhelms.  What the Angel means is that faith and  patience give us strength to endure horrible things. Hate isn't the only way. If that's not a relevant message for today, what is?

In 2007, the Dream of Gerontius at Gloucester Cathedral. was fully sold out, but at the last minute I was unexpectedly given tickets. So I took a friend who'd been through months of trauma.  Then the music started and she felt a sudden rush of inexplicable but intense peace. Then she remembered how her father, who had died a few months before, had loved Elgar and may have heard it in Gloucester when he lived nearby in his youth. (He was Catholic and didn't normally do C of E). There's no point rationalizing such things. Emotionally they feel true, and if they bring such comfort, who can complain? She's not the first, nor will be the last, to be affected by the Dream of Gerontius. Perhaps that's the kind of miracle a self-effacing man like Cardinal Newman would have liked - simple, but profoundly helpful.


Please forward this on to anyone you think it might help.  There is lots more on this site on Elgar, Three Choirs, Messiaen, war, social issues etc.

Fourth of July !

4th July and I'm midway thru an opera marathon - 6 operas, 8 days. Not usually a good idea, because, for me, depth is more important than breadth. But it will be a challenge! What I'm celebrating is the very fact that we have so much choice, and in many genres..

Last week, I went to Simon Boccanegra, A Midsummers Night's Dream.and caught up with a bit of orchestral left over from previous week when I was at Aldeburgh. Alert!  You can still listen to broadcasts from Aldeburgh on BBC Radio3 online. I enjoyed Christiane Oelze's Messiaen Harawi, one of my favourite works, see here and here. Oelze didn't make it last year and I didn't make it this year, but thanks to the broadcast everyone can hear it. Oelze sings a lot of baroque, so she's made me think of Harawi as a Pagan Liturgy. She brings out the ritualized structure of the piece and the idea of personal sublimated into cosmic.

Alas because I was at Salome at the Royal Opera House (report coming soon) I missed the broadcast of Tamerlano.  I don't care what anyone says, I really enjoyed it at ROH.  My friend and I took it in turns to doze off. I was half awake in the first act, he in the third, but luckily the third act was by far the best, and by then I was fresh enough to appreciate it. The secret of liking Tamerlano I think is to accept it for what it is, a piece that's come from an aesthetic completely different to 19th century Grand Opera, and from an era when time moved more slowly. On DVD, you can pause and get a drink. Just like they did in Handel's time. When they got back, the same aria was still going on. Twenty minutes per sentence!

Manon gets deported to America, so on July 4th I thought about what Manon missed out on (report coming soon too).  At last I get to go to Idomeneo and find out what the fuss is about, and then, Glyndebourne, Don Giovanni. I'll be exhausted, but it will be fun and I'm grateful.  Then, the Proms! Mahler 8, Meistersinger, Simon Boccanegra. Truly we are blessed that we have so much choice and so many opportunities to listen in different ways. The Proms will be broadcast internationally, online, on demand and on TV. The ROH Simon Boccanegra is being broadcast next Saturday too, ahead of the Proms performance, so catch that and compare. And Glyndebourne Don Giovanni will be on TV at Christmas .

Aldeburgh - Bach Mass crowd flock to Boulez and Carter

Pierre Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain came to the Aldeburgh Music Festival. It was the big finale, and such an important concert that I'll write about it in depth later. First, though, the first of the two days with Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain, one of the most amazing orchestras in the world.

Nearly every year at Aldeburgh, Bach's Mass in B Minor gets an outing because it's perfect for Snape. This year, John Eliot Gardiner conducted, guaranteed to sell out within hours. Car park packed with tour buses, full of Bach Mass fans. But the wonderful thing is, many of the Bach Mass crowd came hours early, and heard Pierre Boulez talk to Pierre-Laurent Aimard. They stayed for the concert after the talk - Boulez Incises for Piano, Sonatina for Flute and Piano and Elliott Carter's Duo for Violin and Piano (Dimitri Vassilakis (p), Emmanuelle Ophèle (fl) Hae-Sun Kang (vn))

What's more the Bach Mass Crowd listened attentively. No-one brainwashed them into thinking "Difficult is Dangerous". Maybe they didn't all get it, but they were prepared to listen and think for themselves.  Surprisingly warm applause!  Maybe this audience related to Boulez because he's their own age group, but it felt sincere. A million times better than the stagey fake applause that happens in some places where people think they're proving something by standing up to clap, even for rubbish.

Boulez isn't the demon some sensationalists make him out to be. Nadia Boulanger hated everything about him,. One of the reasons for the schism in American and European tastes springs from Boulanger's jealous antagonism to Messiaen and anyone who might challenge her view that early Stravinsky was what modern music should be. Including Stravinsky himself, later on.

French music's always been different from Austro-German music, said Boulez, and the Nazis weren't going to promote modern music. So French musicians were isolated, especially during the Occupation, when Boulez was studying with Messiaen.  He learned Webern from scores, also hard to come by. Hans Rosbaud was his mentor, indeed, it was Rosbaud who asked Boulez to conduct at short notice when Rosbaud fell ill. Boulez took the train to Germany, and started another career. Learning from the score has been Boulez's mantra ever since. That's why he set up Domaine Musicale, so new music could be performed by top musicians who cared about it. From Domaine Musicale to Ensemble Intercontemporain, and to IRCAM.

Boulez talked about John Cage "from whom I learned so much", about American poetry and painting, which influence his music. Boulez's knowledge of European art and literature is formidable, though he didn't mention it in the talk.  He gave up on serialism and other isms decades ago, "It was too boring. Why twelve tones when you can have so many other possibilities?". But Schoenberg showed the way. Boulez and Aimard discussed various works, Le marteau sans maître, the Piano Sonatas, Cummings ist der Dichter.  They could have gone on much longer, but even at Aldeburgh, time schedules intrude.

Later, there was a screening of the film, Piano du xxe siècle, where Pierre-Laurent Aimard talks through Boulez Piano Sonata no 1, almost bar by bar, showing why it's so interesting. Aimard knows what he's talking about and is so enthusiastic it illuminates the full performance even if you already know the work. It's a wonderful film, made in 1985. lots of extras as background, like a shot of "Boulez's school report", Messiaen's comment on the official record of the Paris Conservatoire. "Un tel musicien! Il aurait un grand avenir."

The film is part of a series for French television, but is most certainly not dumbed down. Boulez, Messiaen, Stockhausen, Ligeti, each documentary filmed to enhance the music itself.  For this film, says Aimard, "we aimed for a risk taking element with the camera, keeping its movements  and gestures improvised, albeit prepared with the greatest of care in order to correspond to the extremely active and free gestures of the music".

Is that the secret of promoting music ? Not just new music, but all music. The film engages with a specific piece, describing how it works and how it came to be. Intelligence, imagination and freedom of spirit - just like the piece itself. No wonder Messiaen used this piece as basic teaching material.  He wanted his students to think,  and create original work. Those who hate  "difficult" music have only themselves to blame.

Yvonne Loriod - musician and muse

Yvonne Loriod has passed away, aged 86. All the newspaper obits are out, standard pieces, written long ago, some cobbled together from material on Olivier Messiaen. He was the love of her life and centre of her existence. But there was much more to "Mrs Loriod" as Pierre-Laurent Aimard charmingly calls her. She deserves a tribute in her own right.

Not so easy, because she was self-effacing, letting Messiaen take the limelight, but she was formidably talented. She was an extremely good pianist, playing at a high level, certainly not just Messiaen. She came to Paris to learn composition, and attracted the eye of Nadine Boulanger. Boulanger had a serious animus against Messiaen, so when Loriod took up with Messiaen she was immediately dropped from Boulanger circles. Not that Loriod cared. Messiaen's empathic, open-minded approach to music was much more Loriod's thing, anyway, apart from the fact she fell in love.

Because Messiaen was such a devout Catholic, marriage was out of the question, as his first wife was hospitalized for what seems to have been some kind of mental problem.  Loriod and Messiaen didn't actually live together but shared three floors of the same building.. One floor his, one floor hers and the one in the middle was teaching space. She taught too, becoming a professor at an early age.  Yvonne and her sister Jeanne were both pianists, both learning the Ondes Martenot and performing round the world.  (Both also continued playing piano.) In the late 1990's they both came to London to play: two tiny elderly ladies exuding charm. Sadly Jeanne died soon after. Yvonne lived on, but was too frail to come to London in 2008 to celebrate Messiaen's centenary (curated by Aimard, and bigger than the Paris commemorations).

Loriod and Messiaen were so much of a unit that it's arguable he would not have achieved quite as much as he did without her presence.  Her name means "Oriole", so when the song of an oriole appears in his music, there's an extra level of meaning.  Loriod is a presence in most of his music, even indirectly.  He composed entirely on his own, bringing out new works only near completion, but she was musician enough herself to comment intelligently.

Plenty can, and has, and will be written about Loriod's influence on Messiaen's art, but she contributed in simple, practical ways, too. She knitted the enormous, multi-coloured scarf he wears in one of the most famous photographs. It's too huge and too extrovert to be something you'd find in a shop. He knew what it meant, so he wears it with a huge grin. She was the "practical one" who made arrangements, fixed the tape recorders and apparently drove a car.  She was also the emollient one, who kept up friendships such as with Boulez (pictured here) with whom she was close (same age).  She mothered Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the son she never had, and adored his children. She'll be remembered of course as Messiaen's life partner and muse, but she was someone very special herself.

Coming up next : a report on Florian Boesch at the Wigmore Hall, and a special, which I've been promisiung for ages, on Krenek's Reisebuch  aus den oesterreichischen Alpen, which I've beeen  raving about since Holzmair recorded it in 1998. It's one of the 20th century's key song cycles.  In the meantime read more here.http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.com/2010/01/vienna-to-weimar-song-recital.html