Disc 1
Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956-58)
i Le chocard des alpes [8:12]
ii Le loriot [9:25]
iii Le merle bleu [13:31]
iv Le traquet stapazin [15:51]
v La chouette hulotte [8:46]
vi L'alouette lulu [7:42]
Disc 2
Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956-58)
vii La rousserolle effarvatte [30:06]
viii L'alouette calandrelle [5:40]
ix La bouscarle [11:20]
x Le merle de roche [19:12]
xi La buse variable [11:40]
Disc 3
Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956-58)
xii Le traquet rieur [8:38]
xiii Le courlis cendré [9:57]
Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (1985)
I: Le Rouge-gorge [2:43]
II: Le merle Noir [2:37]
III: Le Rouge-gorge [2:31]
IV: La Grive musicienne [2:39]
V: Le Rouge-gorge [3:08]
VI: L'Alouette des champs [1:59]
La Fauvette des jardins (1970)
[29:36]
Volume one of American
pianist Paul Kim’s complete recordings
of the piano works of Olivier Messiaen
covers ‘Birdsong’ as given on the cover,
that is to say, those works whose titles
are dedicated to birdsong.
Messiaen’s interest
in birdsong developed early in life,
and throughout his life he undertook
the task of transcribing them in the
wild – reproducing as far as possible
the calls of birds into Western musical
notation. The composer himself admitted
however, that his methods of creating
music from birdsong were conditioned
by the limitations of the chromatic
scale and the expectations of the ear,
so that any literal rendering suggested
by the titles of the works here is tempered
and filtered through Messiaen’s own
personal idiom. The original micro-intervals
accomplished by birds are suggested
through a variety of techniques, such
as widening all other intervals in proportion,
when the microtone is taken as its smallest
available interval, the semitone. Transposition
is also an important factor, and of
course the tessitura of the original
song is inevitably lower in general
than the original birdsong. The habitat,
environment and times of day in which
birds are heard are also employed in
the creation of these pieces.
Catalogue d’oiseaux,
when seen as a single work, is the longest
and arguably the most technically demanding
of Messiaen’s oeuvre for the piano,
and Paul Kim’s reading is technically
excellent, intelligently informed and
poetically sensitive. He can bring out
the religious ecstasy without turning
it into soggy sentimentalism, is keenly
aware of Messiaen’s intentions with
regard to atmosphere and context, and
is a master of colour and contrast –
essential characteristics in this demanding
music.
My principal comparison
is the excellent cycle recorded by Peter
Hill in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
originally released on Unicorn, and
currently available on the Regis label.
The mid-price status of Hill’s set doesn’t
disqualify it as an equal to Kim’s,
certainly since it was not a budget
option for collectors of the original
releases. As a complete Messiaen cycle
it is still regarded as one of the top
choices, although there is plenty of
increasingly hot competition these days.
My initial impression of Kim’s recording
over Hill’s was one of joyful relief.
Much as I admire Hill’s playing, the
Unicorn recordings always did place
one more or less under the piano lid,
and concentrated listening could leave
you feeling a little battered around
the head in some of the pieces. Kim’s
piano sound is placed in more of a concert-hall
perspective, and you immediately have
the feeling you will be able to cope
longer with the intensity of the music
as a result. My only ongoing bugbear
with the Centaur recording is the tuning
of one or two notes in the upper range
of the piano. These notes - or note
- are not so much off tune as rather
twangy, meaning a note out of tune with
itself – something which has my mate
Johan the piano tuner twitching his
moustache. Our pet suspicion is that
Mr. Kim broke a string during rehearsals
– the piano never having encountered
his like, nor the demands of Messiaen
before, and that the new one was still
bedding in during the recording – something
which is virtually impossible to keep
in check without stopping every 5 minutes
for a re-jig. This is a problem which
had been cured by the time of the Vol.2
Vingt Regards sessions about
which I’ve already raved enough on these
pages
review. Whatever the reason, this
remains a criticism, and while it is
a relatively minor issue in the monumental
scheme of the thing it is one of those
little niggles which constantly call
attention to themselves, and which can
turn off sensitive ears.
Never mind. Horowitz’s
piano also had twangy notes and nobody
complained much. As for the Hill/Kim
comparison, I increasingly found myself
on a course of swings and roundabouts.
Hill’s technique is just that little
bit tighter on balance, having a solidly
reliable quality which, in Messiaen,
quickly leads to cries of ‘miraculous’.
I have talked to pianists about this
staggeringly difficult sounding music,
but those up to the challenge admit
that, while there are great technical
demands, Messiaen in fact had great
feeling for pianistic idiom, and some
players seem relatively comfortable
with even his most extreme sounding
writing. I’m not saying it’s easy, just
that these days we should have moved
beyond incredulity concerning the feat,
rather asking what the musician is communicating.
In other words, I ultimately stopped
seesawing between different versions,
and decided to take Paul Kim on his
own terms.
Kim has certainly done
his homework in this music, and, taking
almost any of the pieces from the Catalogue
d’oiseaux you can often recall the
natural sounds of Messiaen’s birds,
or sometimes more importantly the sensations
you might associate with hearing them.
Each will have his or her favourites,
and there are certainly a quite a few
birds here I must admit I’ve never heard
other than on recordings – either that
or without realising what they were.
All of these performances are amazing,
and one can dip at random and become
deeply involved in an instant. Those
birds one has experienced in the wild
inevitably recall the strongest responses.
This is the case, to chilling effect,
with La chouette hulotte or Tawny
Owl, whose nocturnal cries sometimes
penetrated my childhood dreams in the
South Wales countryside. I once caught
one passing close, in flight, in the
beam of my torch. Completely soundless
in the air you can imagine how such
a bird gained such a ghostly reputation.
Continuing the personal references,
I could entirely find myself in Le
courlis cendré or Curlew,
whose distinctive calls and those of
other coastal birds such as Terns and
Gulls will be familiar to many UK twitchers,
and all of which brought me straight
to the lapping waters and mud flats
of the Waddenzee in Friesland. This
is not so much to indicate the qualities
of Messiaen’s musical observations and
transcriptions, but to point out Paul
Kim’s ability to recreate the imagery
and associations from which they are
derived, surely a quality beyond price.
The Petites esquisses
d’oiseaux, being later works, seem
to have a gentler, less dramatic sense.
Each piece is a gorgeous jewel, often
presenting the birds within frames of
chorale-like chord progressions. The
mad L’Alouette des champs or
skylark bears down, hovering invisibly
but making you want to laugh or cry
with its constant musical tirade, and
Kim once again has this sensation in
a nutshell. La Fauvette des jardins
is an incredible narrative in nature,
an entire day described in music like
La rousserolle effarvatte of
Catalogue d’oiseaux. Where the
listener is given a tour of France through
the entirety of the Catalogue,
this piece presents a single place through
which birds fly, alighting and departing,
while another of Messiaen’s monumental
chorales gathers the whole thing into
a coherent and moving whole. Comparison
between Peter Hill and Paul Kim in this
piece does highlight one aspect in which
I marginally prefer Hill’s approach.
Coming in at 32:11 to Kim’s 29:36, Hill
does take just a little more time with
the silences in this music, and has
a greater contrast in speed relationships.
This gives some aspects of the work
greater weight, and while this might
over-emphasize some of the bare, two-part
developments there is certainly more
of a sense of space, against which the
birds stand out in greater relief. I
do however like Kim’s sense of developing
harmony and resolution.
This avian collection
is very much a safe recommendation,
and in many cases will top the competition.
There will probably never be an entirely
definitive recording of the Catalogue
d’oiseaux. Paul Kim’s abilities
are beyond question, and his colours
and character have the edge where others
might be less ‘on the edge’ at some
moments. What I experienced in his Vingt
Regards I do find here however,
and that is an intelligence at work
which projects through the notes, giving
us more than mere ‘interpretation’,
and projecting an understanding and
feeling for the message of the composer
which is communicated through the playing.
I value this above any kind of virtuosic
display, and as a result shall be keeping
this version at the heart of my library
from now on.
Dominy Clements
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