Messiaen
Sun, Nov 13 2011, 9:10AM
#2
RE: Messiaen
Well good timing for this as the Turangalia Symphony is broadcast on Radio 3 this afternoon (Sunday) so I shall sidle off to the spare room and give it a listen. The BBCSO also doing Symphony of Psalms. Recorded at the Barbican on Bonfire Night - wizz bang!
Sun, Nov 13 2011, 6:04PM
#3
RE: Messiaen
I have fond memories of my brother and I playing chess to La Nativité du Seigneur aged 15 (ish). And I compiled a Messiaen "chill-out" mix for a trip to France with a girlfriend once - there are many beautiful sections in works like Vingt Regards and Turangalila that non-classical people can enjoy, so it seemed sensible to put 'em all together and leave out the more challenging bits that scares them off. It made a nice alternative to her Barry White tape anyhow.
Sun, Nov 13 2011, 7:21PM
#4
RE: Messiaen
I don't understand the cynicism about Messiaen. For me, Quartet for the End of Time is a great, haunting work. There is a delicate spirituality even in the opening movement Liturgy of Crystal if my memory serves me correctly.
I find the fact that Messiaen composed this work while in Stalag V11 a feat of the human mind, will and spirit against adverse circumstances. Personally, I think some of the greatest 20th Century Music was written under such circumstances. Shostakovitch and Prokofiev under Stalin?
Some of the very best spiritual works of the post-war period came out of Eastern Europe, the Ligeti Requiem, Penderecki's Magnificat etc...,which suggets to me also that faith flourishes more under oppression.
I think of Lutoslawski and Panufnik, making dozens of two-piano reductions together of the great works in war-torn Warsaw, to play to people in the cafes...
Mon, Nov 14 2011, 1:19AM
#5
RE: Messiaen RE: Messiaen
I love Messiaen's music, absolutely love it.
At first hearing it made no sense but after several hearings it all cleverly clicks into place like the birds in the trees.
I'll even forgive his fanatical Roman Catholicism ("What have the Catholics ever done for us?"" They got rid of the witches..
I know, you are right.
Such an easy target.
No need to start a crusade over it, though.
Tue, Dec 6 2011, 9:52PM
#6
RE: Messiaen
I do find the music of Messiaen very difficult to listen to and take seriously. I have given the Quartet for the End of time many attempts but it just seems to be one long boring dirge. I can't see how this composer can be considered to be a great of the 20th century, a minor composer maybe. The symphony mentioned also seems to be cheap music, very tacky. Are these works usual for Messiaen or did he write greater music that I have just not heard yet?
Tue, Dec 6 2011, 10:20PM
#7
RE: Messiaen
Hi Anne!
Try some of teh organ works.
Start with the short (5 min.) Le Banquet Celeste, a communion antiphon. It really does reach a beautiful ending.
And, at this time of the year, try Le (or si it la) nativite du seigneur...Wonderful stuff!
Mark (Partsong)
Wed, Dec 7 2011, 1:38PM
#8
RE: Messiaen
Anne, I'm not a fan of Messiaen either, but there's one work of his that I find impressive: the Turangalila Symphony. It's as big and complex as a Mahler symphony, plus the eerie sound of the unique ondes martenot and a prominent and effective piano part. Next time you have nearly 80 minutes to spare, you might try it...
Wed, Dec 7 2011, 3:23PM
#9
RE: Messiaen
Start with the short (5 min.) Le Banquet Celeste, a communion antiphon. It really does reach a beautiful ending.
Mark (Partsong)
Mark, I was actually reading your post last night and out of curiosity looked up the above on Spotify and played two versions of it. It is, indeed, a rather hypnotic and beautiful piece. Many thanks for the recommendation.
I've never really given Messiaen a fair crack of the whip, but this might begin to change that.
Thu, Dec 8 2011, 7:59PM
#10
RE: Messiaen
When I first met my mother in law, she confided that she rather liked Messiaen. "Ooh good" I replied "let me play you...." by which time the room was empty. It seemed she didn't like him as much as all that.
OM is one of those composers for whom you have to be in the right mood - I confess that this is not often. I have been overwhelmed by live performances of some of the organ music and Turangalila. I have also found Et exspecto and Les canyons des etoiles to be good.
Best wishes,
P
Mon, Dec 19 2011, 4:50PM
#11
RE: Messiaen
Messiaen does rather seem to be one of these 'fake heroes' that the 20th century seemed to produce every few years. He clearly had little talent but liked to experiment (probably because he had little talent). The intellectual elite, who don't care too much for music at all, but like to gaze at their own reflection, liked to pass his music off as spiritual, or natural. It is clearly just noise. He will be forgotten about in 20 years time.
Mon, Dec 19 2011, 5:56PM
#12
RE: Messiaen
Hi JKH. I am glad you like that piece - it is rather beautiful.
The only thing I find with some of Messiaen's larger organ works, though I claim no great knowledge of them, is that they seem more dynamic and not as quietly contemplative as that piece. Not that dynamic is a bad thing, but it's a different mood, and I would like to find 'more' of that particular piece.
I would therefore be interested to hear from Messiaen fans who can point me to which other organ works by him are as contemplative as Le Banquet Celeste?
I have in the last couple of years sat through a couple of organ recitals in my local cathedral where, curiously enough, the music department and organists do have a real liking for the French 20th Century organ music of people like Messiaen and Langlais. There have been some other wonderful French pieces as well that I have heard, including a great elegy by Guy Ropartz.
So I have listened live to The Lord's Nativity and the Pentecost Mass. Both stirring. (English titles of course!)
I think one of the interesting things about Messiaen is that he moved away from total serialism and developed his own more personal language if you like, using his seven modes. It is an individual sound therefore, perhaps not easy listening, but it does mark him out as different from much else that was happening in the 20th Century...
Mark
Thu, Dec 22 2011, 12:53PM
#13
RE: Messiaen
A taped recording of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony performed by the BBC Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Charles Groves with John Ogdon (Piano) and Jeanne
Loriod (Ondes Martenot), broadcast from a Prom at the Royal Albert Hall, Wednesday 6
August 1969 is available at
http://www.cliveheathmusic.co.uk/tapes.php
and for those with a taste for edgy music there is Schoenberg's Serenade as well.
I love all of Messiaen but particularly his organ music which is so exactly right for the instrument, so apt for the sonorities it can produce. Strangely, the only other organ works that strike me as incapable of realization on any other instrument other than the one for which they were written, come from the pens of French composers too - Alain and Langlais.
Down the years I've had an ongoing argument with myself over the Catalogue d'Oiseaux. How valid (not sure if that's the word, but I can't think of another) is a piece of music if it requires accompanying text to decode what it's saying? Is there anyone alive (step forward Parla) who can listen to #3 of book one and say, "Oh obviously that's June on the Vermillion Coast near Banyuls and that, if I'm not mistaken, is the Blue Rock Thrush. Herring Gulls and Swifts in there too, I believe."? I can only make out the gist of a few, to an extent - the Tawny Owl, Curlew, perhaps the Buzzard - without recourse Messiaen's notes. You can argue that they're enjoyable as pieces of pure music, but I believe enjoyment is much enhanced if you're told the birds involved - front and back stage - and the scene, which in the Catalogue will include time of year, time of day, weather and geography.
You could also argue that full understanding of other genres of music demands accompanying notes, ballet for instance. The Catalogue, though, is an extreme case and as much as I enjoy it the debate continues in my mind.