Entries associated with the tag "Olivier Messiaen":

Tonight offers a rare opportunity to catch one of the real masterpieces of 20th century music; Christopher Taylor performs all two-plus hours of Olivier Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'Enfant Jesus. It's tonight at Ganz Hall, Roosevelt University; called about 30 minutes ago and tickets were still available.

If you're going, or just interested in the piece, here's some reading to get you started:

* Paul Griffiths: "It is addressed principally to God, as the source of love, expressing divine love together with human love for the divine. But it also conveys the composer's love of sound, and of the sounds of the piano in particular, whether thunderous or mist-thin, always touched with resonance. And it tells of the immediate musical and personal contact Messiaen felt with the pianist for whom he wrote the work in 1944: Yvonne Loriod, his future wife."

* Review of Taylor in SF: "It also incorporates a host of influences: numerology, Roman Catholic symbolism, birdsong, Eastern instruments and instrumentation, complex mathematical relationships, and Greek and Hindu sources (for starters)."

* Program notes from a Taylor performance (PDF): "in No. 6, Par Lui tout a été fait [By Him All Has Been Made], makes a true 'big bang' (Messiaen’s characterization) of the creation story. Th is great fugue—or 'anti-fugue' as it has been deemed—is considered one of the greatest challenges in the piano repertoire, not only in digital dexterity, but in the mental agility required to master the composer’s complex rhythmic and melodic patterns."

* From Messiaen's notes (ibid; you should really take that with you if you go): "I have always been very struck by the fact that God is happy—and that this ineff able and continuous joy lived in the soul of Christ. Joy is for me a rapture, a drunkenness in the maddest senseof the term."

* Roland-Manuel: "This musician’s entire output proclaims the supremacy of things spiritual. It is as far away as possible from the sentimental austerity of the Franckists, and closest to the sensual delights of sound, as if the most concentrated musical material, the richest, and the finest, is – in his eyes – the best way to translate the ineffable splendours of the spiritual world."

* Seth Bousted: "I remember being in high school and taking Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus home from the library just so I could find out what this Messiaen guy was all about. I listened to it several times that day, trying to make sense of it. I fell asleep. But I had the most intense dreams."

* No. 6:

No. 10 (Contemplation of the Spirit of Joy)

Lots more where that came from, although the audio is obviously of YouTube quality.

The great Alex Ross takes notice of the U. of C.'s Messiaen centennial and offers some recommended recordings. Tonight's performance features Pierre Laurent-Aimard, a former student of the composer, conducting Oiseaux exotiques (Exotic Birds). These videos are great introductions to Messiaen's ornothological interests.

The University of Chicago Presents kicks off its incredible, ten-day Messiaen centennial tonight. The first really exciting concert is tomorrow, with the great interpreter of modern classical, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, conducting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in a program that includes the composer's Oiseaux exotiques (see below for Aimard performing the work, conducted by Boulez). Christopher Taylor's performance of Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus next week is also a highlight. Andrew Patner has more, including news that WFMT is recording a whole bunch of it.

Allow me to second Steve Langendorf's recommendation of Tashi Monday night at Ravinia. I haven't heard Tashi's recording of Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time," ashamedly, but I have heard pianist Peter Serkin's solo recordings--right now I'm listening to Vingt regards sur l'Enfant Jésus, which I was lucky enough to acquire for a song at Hyde Park Records, one of my favorite stops for cheap classical LPs--and they're very good. He's an odd composer, but he pushes a lot of my buttons--mystical Christianity, the American West, ornithology.

The real Messiaen throwdown comes in October, with the U. of C.'s 2008 Messiaen Festival, featuring Pierre Laurent-Aimard, eighth blackbird, the Pacifica Quartet, and others.

Awesome: the U. of C. will be marking the 100th birthday of the late French composer Olivier Messiaen in October with a 10-day festival, featuring the wonderful, eclectic pianist Pierre Laurent-Aimard, eighth blackbird, the Pacifica Quartet, and many others. Wikipedia's bio is actually quite extensive.

Messaien's most famous work is Quartet for the End of Time, inspired by the Book of Revelations and first performed at Stalag 13; Alex Ross has essays on that and his opera St. Francis. I really like this thumbnail description by David Schiff:

"His religious beliefs were those of a pious medieval Catholic; his musical style ignored just about everything that had happened in European music between the troubadours and Wagner. He cobbled together a personal idiom out of bits and pieces of musical techniques and sources from around the world, forging them into a system he hawked with the ardent self-confidence of a traveling Bible salesman. His combination of naïve fervor, pedantry and self-made originality made him seem more like a misplaced American maverick--like Charles Ives, Henry Cowell or John Cage--than a product of French culture."

Messiaen is just endlessly fascinating. I hope someone at the U. of C. tracks down and screens Paul Festa's Apparition of the Eternal Church, which features a diverse cast (including Harold Bloom and John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig fame) reacting to a Messiaen work, just because it looks interesting.