In March and April last year, six organists, each highly regarded by the composer, performed Messiaen’s complete organ works in a series of weekly recitals in l’Eglise de la Sainte-Trinite in Paris, where he served the Catholic liturgy as organist from 1931 until his death in 1992. As the CD booklet touchingly puts it, this “Messiaen Festival paid homage to the great composer on the third anniversary of his return to God”. These recordings were made at the same time as the recitals, though they are not live recordings.
The main significance and attraction of this set lies in the magical combination of Messiaen’s music, the organ of La Trinite and the acoustic of the church. Here (thanks also to the composer’s exactly specified registrations for this very organ) is a rare case of total authenticity of sonority, even more than in Messiaen’s historic 1956 La Trinite recordings, since the present organ sounds (as the 1956 organ did not) in marvellous condition – poetic, mysterious, thrillingly powerful but also transparent. If the instrument was midwife to these works, then the church’s glowing acoustic (given a large say in the recorded balance) was their cradle and audibly remains their ideal spiritual home. The recording is natural rather than sensational. Some listeners may feel a twinge of disappointment, finding certain textures more cloudy than is ideal, for the organ image is more recessed than in Unicorn-Kanchana’s outstanding production for Jennifer Bate’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement, also in La Trinite (10/87). Particularly in Hakim’s and Gillock’s discs I would happily trade a helping of atmosphere for more presence, but overall, and especially in the Meditations and Livre du Saint-Sacrement, the sound is satisfyingly evocative of the distinctive chemistry between organ and acoustic.
The performances are all dedicated of course, and some are outstanding. Messiaen’s own recordings – definitive in spirit, but certainly not slavish to the letter – suggest that fidelity to the score is a passionate matter, enlarging rather than inhibiting the interpreter’s individuality. To take the details of the composer’s readings as the starting-point of an interpretation is a dangerous policy: Jon Gillock’s performance of Les corps glorieux (1939) contains some finely sustained lyrical playing, but some borrowed rhetorical manners too. The jazzy “Joie et clarte” lacks fantasy, and at the dramatic crux of the work, the first part of “Combat de la mort et de la vie”, he is tempted to take Messiaen’s already exaggerated tempo contrasts even further, veering between stasis and incoherence. For a more satisfying performance of the piece, try Louis Thiry on Calliope. Jennifer Bate’s first recording of La nativite du Seigneur (1935) in Beauvais Cathedral (Unicorn-Kanchana, 2/88) made heavy weather of Messiaen’s “rhythms of added value” and contained some unfortunate misreadings. This new version, though less spectacular as recorded sound, seems better to me – it’s more faithful to the score and more naturally poetic too, even if the shepherds could be more blithe and the wise men more “serene and majestic” as Messiaen puts it.
Naji Hakim (Messiaen’s successor as titulaire at La Trinite) gives a taut L’Ascension (1934) that never sags, though in recital I’ve heard him more poetically loose-limbed in “Alleluia sereins” and more daringly manipulative in “Transports de joie”. His long (unmarked) diminuendo on the last chord of the work is quite differently managed to Messiaen (whose legendary 1956 treatment was surely assisted by his engineers): Hakim somehow manages to continue the sensation of ascent. Even more absorbing is his Messe de la Pentecote (1950), where the combination of theological fire and oriental formulaic structure clearly strikes a deep resonance in his personality.
Rather matter-of-fact performances of Apparition de l’eglise eternelle (1931) and Verset pour la fete de la dedicace (1960) frame Louis Thiry’s very fine account of the terrible and beautiful Livre d’orgue (1951). He is not as transfixingly ferocious as Dame Gillian Weir (Collins, 12/94), nor as earthy as Messiaen himself (EMI, 6/92), but he is witty, concentrated and, except in the coruscating “Les yeux dans les roues” (where manual detail is indistinct), fully in command of the recorded acoustic, in a work that would seem to allow precious little room for manoeuvre. Thomas Daniel Schlee is strong and patient in the nine-movement Meditations sur le mystere de la Sainte Trinite (1969), with a firm grip over its structural processes and without rhetorical quirks. This is very satisfying indeed, though Messiaen’s 1972 Erato performance (in fully acceptable sound) is even more tellingly articulated, with a majestic rendering of the glorious sixth meditation (where Schlee, uncharacteristically, is a shade hasty).
Finally to the 18-movement Livre du Saint-Sacrement (1984). This is its sixth recording (and Hans-Ola Ericsson’s second – the first was on BIS, 10/92) – has any major work been so much recorded within little more than a decade of its completion? The longest of Messiaen’s organ works, it is also the one that speaks most raptly of divine love. The divergence of approach can be extreme: Weir takes just 100 minutes over it, Almut Rossler on Motette (who gave the first performances) 114 and Jennifer Bate nearly 130 minutes (Unicorn-Kanchana, 10/87). At about 120 minutes, Ericsson is less severe than Rossler, less statuesque than Bate, and more pliably affectionate than both. Though the virtuosic elements are brilliantly dispatched, the overall mood of the performance is compellingly tender, the senses led inexorably and gently through the varied fragrances and colours of Messiaen’s spiritual garden, meditation and momentum in equilibrium. For me, this is the most convincing recording of this radiant work to date, and of these new performances this was the one to which I surrendered most completely.
Surveying the field of complete sets then, the last to be prised from my grasp would be Messiaen’s performances on Erato and EMI (6/92 – even though there are moth-eaten features to the 1956 recordings) to which I would add – if my dealer or Jade could be persuaded to separate it – Ericsson’s new Livre du Saint-Sacrement. Weir’s Collins Classics’ set is a riveting, definitely complementary view, delivered with sovereign technical command and with the zeal of a Savonarola rather than a Francis of Assisi, but I wouldn’t be without it. Ericsson’s traversal for BIS, completed six years ago, gave very much the impression of grand interpretations in the making, and conceived for a grander acoustic setting than that of Lulea Cathedral. However, Unicorn-Kanchana’s sound-stage for Bate has enormous breadth, sometimes too much so, and some of her performances lack imaginative fire. As documentation of authentic sonority this new set has a unique place and most of the performances range from the attractive to the outstanding, with only Les corps glorieux a serious disappointment. So if the recorded balance satisfies, for collectors committed to a complete set, and one only, this could be it.'