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I went to two performances of Messaien's music this week. It's the centenary of his birth, so there is plenty of Messaien to be had around Boston this year.
On Thursday evening, I attended a performance of Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant Jesus, a set of pieces for solo piano lasting about two hours. My original intent was to take careful notes and provide commentary on each movement individually, but the experience of listening to this piece was so overwhelming that I ended up not doing that. The piece as a whole is an entire universe, containing everything from the sublime and subtle to the furiously impassioned. It's really beautiful and often astounding. The "God" theme that appears in many of the pieces is particularly gorgeous - a set of wonderfully resonant and bell-like chords. Typically, with such a long performance I might expect to tire of the sound of the piano, or to get generally fatigued, but that was not the case here. Vingt Regards kept my full attention and my complete engagement from the first note to the last.
Last night I went to the Boston Chamber Society's concert to hear the Quartet for the End of Time. I love this piece, and this was the first time I got to hear it live. It was a terrific experience. I noticed a lot more of the subtle glissando things that the cello does in the first movement, and got a better sense of the relationships between the instruments. I never get tired of this piece.
I admit that I didn't stay for the second half of the concert, which was a Schubert trio. I am not much of a fan of Schubert, so I couldn't even imagine listening to him after the glories of Messaien. Also, it was a pairing that made no sense whatsoever to me. Sure, if they had done some late Beethoven, or some other work written during WWII, or even just any other French composer. I felt like maybe they were placating the audience, as if they needed to be rewarded or reassured after the Messaien (from what I've read about programming strategies, this is a reasonably common tactic when programming modern music). If that was the case, than I strongly object. The Quartet for the End of Time is an amazing, wonderful, and beautiful piece of music in its own right. It does not need to be endured, it does not need to be apologized for. If a music organization feels that way about it, I contend that the fault does not lie with the Quartet for the End of Time.
That having been said, I do admit that Messaien's music does take effort to appreciate. It's often a bit chaotic and his harmonies can be extremely weird and gnarly. His music can seem pretty strange. In fact, when I was first exposed to Messaien's organ music as a teenager, I didn't like it. And when I first heard the Quartet for the End of Time in grad school, I was initially unsure about it. But I still found Messaien interesting, so I continued to listen. Once I got over my initial surprise and became more accustomed to his harmonies and learned that Messaien was into birdsong, it all started making a lot more sense. The more of his music I heard, and the more often I listened to it, the more I started to love it. Yes, it takes effort, but of all the early 20th century atonal/dissonant composers who made a complete break with common practice, I think that Messaien is the most rewarding. So start with either the Quartet for the End of Time or Vingt Regards and just keep listening, no matter how strange it is at first, even if you start out disliking it. Messaien is truly worth it.
On Thursday evening, I attended a performance of Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant Jesus, a set of pieces for solo piano lasting about two hours. My original intent was to take careful notes and provide commentary on each movement individually, but the experience of listening to this piece was so overwhelming that I ended up not doing that. The piece as a whole is an entire universe, containing everything from the sublime and subtle to the furiously impassioned. It's really beautiful and often astounding. The "God" theme that appears in many of the pieces is particularly gorgeous - a set of wonderfully resonant and bell-like chords. Typically, with such a long performance I might expect to tire of the sound of the piano, or to get generally fatigued, but that was not the case here. Vingt Regards kept my full attention and my complete engagement from the first note to the last.
Last night I went to the Boston Chamber Society's concert to hear the Quartet for the End of Time. I love this piece, and this was the first time I got to hear it live. It was a terrific experience. I noticed a lot more of the subtle glissando things that the cello does in the first movement, and got a better sense of the relationships between the instruments. I never get tired of this piece.
I admit that I didn't stay for the second half of the concert, which was a Schubert trio. I am not much of a fan of Schubert, so I couldn't even imagine listening to him after the glories of Messaien. Also, it was a pairing that made no sense whatsoever to me. Sure, if they had done some late Beethoven, or some other work written during WWII, or even just any other French composer. I felt like maybe they were placating the audience, as if they needed to be rewarded or reassured after the Messaien (from what I've read about programming strategies, this is a reasonably common tactic when programming modern music). If that was the case, than I strongly object. The Quartet for the End of Time is an amazing, wonderful, and beautiful piece of music in its own right. It does not need to be endured, it does not need to be apologized for. If a music organization feels that way about it, I contend that the fault does not lie with the Quartet for the End of Time.
That having been said, I do admit that Messaien's music does take effort to appreciate. It's often a bit chaotic and his harmonies can be extremely weird and gnarly. His music can seem pretty strange. In fact, when I was first exposed to Messaien's organ music as a teenager, I didn't like it. And when I first heard the Quartet for the End of Time in grad school, I was initially unsure about it. But I still found Messaien interesting, so I continued to listen. Once I got over my initial surprise and became more accustomed to his harmonies and learned that Messaien was into birdsong, it all started making a lot more sense. The more of his music I heard, and the more often I listened to it, the more I started to love it. Yes, it takes effort, but of all the early 20th century atonal/dissonant composers who made a complete break with common practice, I think that Messaien is the most rewarding. So start with either the Quartet for the End of Time or Vingt Regards and just keep listening, no matter how strange it is at first, even if you start out disliking it. Messaien is truly worth it.
