SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Messiaen, Stockhausen, and Boulez: London Sinfonietta, Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank, London. 17.2.2008 (AO)

Messiaen : Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum
Stockhausen : Gesang der Jünglinge
Boulez : Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna

and

Ferneyhough: Arditti Quartet, LSO St. Luke’s, London. 16.02.2008 (AO)

Ferneyhough : Exordium - Ellioti Carteri in honorem centenarii:


Messiaen’s Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum was initially commissioned to commemorate the war dead, but for Messiaen, a devout Catholic, earthly death is only a prelude to everlasting life, when God will resurrect all who have died in a blaze of eternal glory. As a prisoner of war, Messiaen didn’t dwell on hardship, but wrote about The Angel at the End of Time, come to redeem all souls. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum is thus a companion piece to the Quartet for the End of Time, and a supremely confident statement of faith in the future.

Messiaen’s legacy lives on even beyond his own work, in the far reaching influence he’s had on 20th century music. This programme was a celebration of Messiaen and two other pillars of modern music, Boulez and Stockhausen, both of whom he shaped and nurtured. In turn, they too have inspired others, as diverse as Grisey and Murail, Takemitsu, Julian Anderson, Saariaho and Pedro Amaral.

The hall went completely dark at the start of Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge. Slowly, out of the gloom emerged disembodied sound, coming from many directions. The desks on the platform remained empty: a specially poignant image, given that Stockhausen passed away barely two months ago. The title refers to the story in the biblical Book of Daniel, where three youths are condemned into a fiery furnace. Instead of being consumed, they are cleansed, singing the praises of their God. Stockhausen breaks sound down to basic components. Against a background of oscillating electronic sound, words leap out disjointed “Sonne, Mond, Mund…..Frost und Eis, Frost und Eis”. The effect is to obscure the “human” element behind the mechanical noise, and yet to concentrate attention. In 1956 this was shockingly avant garde. But Messiaen appreciated what Stockhausen was doing. He welcomed electronic music as a whole new dimension in the palette of sound.

Similarly, Messiaen understood Boulez, even using the latter’s work as course material at the Conservatoire. They were so close that when Boulez criticised aspects of Messaien’s work, the rift healed quickly. Just as a son needs to break away from his father to find himself, Boulez needed to grow outwards in order to mature. Messiaen, ever the wise mentor, understood. Aimard heard from Messiaen himself how Boulez tracked down a huge, heavy balafon which Messiaen wanted to use, and carried it all the way up to the organ loft at the Trinité, much to the older man’s delight.

Boulez’s Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna is a tribute to another of Boulez’s mentors, Bruno Maderna, a friend, too, of Messiaen. Just as in a funeral processions, percussionists with smaller, hand held instruments lead individual rhythmic groups, and all are followed in turn by darker brass and large percussion instruments like gongs and chimes. This is writing of surprising delicacy. The maracas are shaken in slow progression, each turn of the wrist creating a variation of sound. Although the thrust is ever forwards, there’s an arc-like circularity to the sound, like a comforting embrace. Even the desk arrangements are set in a semi-circular curve, so the small percussion are heard clearly, and the brass spread evenly across the back. It’s deeply personal, defying the shallow clichés about Boulez. No one so close to a man like Messiaen can be without spiritual depth.

So here we had a composer/conductor writing about another composer/conductor, and on this occasion, led by another composer/conductor, Peter Eötvös. Eötvös makes much of incident, announcing the dramatic entry of the tam-tams with a distinct silence and then a flourish of his hands. It certainly came over vividly as a funeral march, though the sense of internal, circular unfolding that comes through in Boulez’s own recording was less marked. Gareth Hulse’s oboe was particularly eloquent, and very moving.

Then, at last, the long awaited Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum. This is stupendously powerful music, written for vast performance spaces like cathedrals or in open spaces like mountains, “God’s cathedrals”. Four trombones, three tubas, one a huge bass, three bassoons and two contrabassoons are banked together forming a massive, impenetrable wall of sound. It’s as if huge caverns had suddenly materialised out of thin air. Heard in a cathedral, they’d sound like an alternative to a mighty organ, but one whose pipes are metal, powered by the breath of human lungs. This might have been overwhelming in the relatively small Queen Elisabeth Hall, so perhaps Eötvös was wise not to unleash the full majesty. Rather less successful was the idea to mark the long reverberations between movements by dimming the lights in the hall. These semi-silences are important parts of the overall work, because they contain in their wake a lot of the colour effects Messiaen cherished. Moreover, they add to the spatial sense of vast distance and timelessness. They need to be respected, rather than diminished by flashy stage effects.

The players of the London Sinfonietta showed their mettle too, in the quiet 2nd movement, where Hulse on oboe and Mark van der Weil on clarinet, produced what Messiaen called “melody by default”, their solitary voices intertwined in strange harmony. Eötvös prepares the crescendi well, though the jaunty nature of the 4th movement could have benefited from sharper, more incisive attack : the souls waiting for resurrection are quivering with wild anticipation ! The final movement builds up to its conclusion with a steady pace, supremely confident, yet without bombast.

Messiaen loved birdsong and exoticism as manifestations of God’s glory, but the ultimate foundation of his music is his intense spiritual conviction. This bedrock of faith is the spring from which flows the irrepressible energy that characterises his music. Perhaps how a conductor intuits this inner vitality gives a measure of how he, or she, truly understands Messiaen’s music. One would have assumed, for example, that the lushness of Turangalîla would have appealed to Bernstein, who conducted the première, but he called it a “monster” and never touched it again. Yet, a few weeks ago, Salonen conducted Turangalîla, alert to its energetic dynamics, rather than the decorative effects. Perhaps it is because Salonen’s interests lie in new music that he can hear what makes Messiaen sound so fresh. Messiaen’s lucid writing calls for equal clarity in performance. This approach to conducting is another aspect of his legacy which isn’t perhaps sufficiently appreciated.

The previous evening, I attended another tribute by one composer to another. This was the UK première of Brian Ferneyhough’s new work, Exordium – Ellioti Carteri in honorem centenarii, performed by the Arditti Quartet, and written in honour of Carter’s 100th birthday. By amazing coincidence, Carter and Messiaen were born exactly one day apart, Messiaen on 10th and Carter on 11th December 1908.

Exordium lasts just over six minutes, but comprises no less than 40 independent fragments, and, in Ferneyhough’s own words, “elevates the non-sequitur to a formal principle”…..“sympathetic magic”. Perhaps that means that references to Carter’s music and influences fly past in joyful sequence. It’s probably not essential to identify each part, though, because the overall creation is quite delightful.

Anne Ozorio


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