Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
Des canyons aux étoiles (1971-74) [100:06]
Tzimon Barto (piano); John Ryan (horn); Andrew Barclay (xylorimba); Erika Öhman (glockenspiel)
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Christoph Eschenbach
rec. live, 2 November 2013, Royal Festival Hall, London
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA LPO-0083 [50:49 + 49:17]
Des canyons aux étoiles (‘From the Canyons to
the Stars’) is one of Messiaen’s most astonishingly original and
inventive orchestral scores. It was commissioned in 1970 by Mrs Alice Tully
to celebrate the forthcoming bicentennial of the USA and received its first
performance in the New York concert hall that is named after Mrs Tully in
1974.
I think it would be fair to say that it hasn’t quite ‘caught on’
to the extent that the Turangalîla-Symphonie has done, despite the
fact that the forces for which Des canyons is scored are smaller.
Possibly part of the reason is that the musical language of Des canyons,
whilst still accessible, is not always as sensuous as that of Turangalîla
and it’s often more demanding of the listener.
I suspect that the main reason, however, is the prodigious difficulties faced
by the players. I believe that Messiaen ‘only’ used 43 players
in this score but what a concert promoter might save on engagement fees would
be more than made up for by rehearsal costs. Instead of the full string section
required for Turangalîla just 13 players are specified for Des
canyons but they all have independent parts. The score also calls for
quadruple woodwind, triple brass and a vast array of tuned and un-tuned percussion,
the percussion roster including demanding solo parts for xylorimba and glockenspiel.
The percussion section includes two highly exotic additions: an éoliphone
– wind machine – and a geophone – sand machine. If all this
were not enough the score includes not only a virtuoso solo piano part –
written for Yvonne Loriod, naturally – but also a solo horn part of
prodigious difficulty. No wonder that performances are fairly rare. The performance
preserved here was a concert that was part of the year-long festival of twentieth-century
music, The Rest is Noise on London’s South Bank; it was reviewed
for MusicWeb International Seen and Heard by Mark Berry.
Though live performances may be fairly rare events the work has been recorded
several times. I know it through the 1988 CBS Sony recording by the London
Sinfonietta and Esa-Pekka Salonen on which Paul Crossley plays the piano (review).
I don’t think that typically analytical Salonen recording is available
any more. I also have a recording conducted by Marius Constant, which is included
in Warner Classic’s large Messiaen Edition box. Constant has authority
in this work: for one thing he has Yvonne Loriod as his pianist and he conducted
the work’s European premiere in 1975 (which is why I’m not sure
that Warner are correct in giving a recording date of 1973, the year before
the first performance of the score!) I’ve not heard the recording by
Sylvain Cambreling of which Dan Morgan has spoken so highly (review).
There is also a version by Myung-Whun Chung, which I’ve not heard. That’s
available in a large Messiaen box from DG (review)
and I think you may still be able to acquire it separately. If so, it’s
the only single disc competition of which I know that this new Eschenbach
release faces.
In response to Mrs Tully’s commission Messiaen decided to celebrate
some of the natural wonders – landscape and avian – of the USA
and his imagination was fired in particular by seeing pictures of some of
the majestic and immense natural features of Utah, which he then visited in
1972. The resulting score is a hymn to nature and to God. In a note accompanying
the Constant recording and quoted by Nigel Simeone in his excellent note for
this Eschenbach release Messiaen said that the piece depicts:
“…ascending from the canyons to the stars – and higher,
to the resurrected in Paradise – in order to glorify God in all his
creation… Consequently, it is first of all a religious work, a work
of praise and contemplation. It is also a geological and astronomical work;
a work of sound colours, where all the colours of the rainbow revolve around
the blue of the steller’s jay and the red of Bryce Canyon.”
Despite the religious impetus behind the work I don’t think that the
listener has to be a believer in order to respond to and be thrilled by this
often audacious score. As so often in Messiaen’s output birdsong is
used prolifically. Indeed, I think I’m right in saying that birdsong
is only absent from one movement, the horn solo ‘Appel interstellaire’.
Messiaen’s decision to use a small number of strings but large contingents
of woodwind, brass and percussion means that page after page of the score
is permeated by bright primary colours. I’ve never been to Utah but
recalling a visit to the Grand Canyon in Arizona I remember vividly the amazing
blue sly and the rich – and varied – red colours of the landscape.
It seems to me that Messiaen has translated those brilliant colours –
and much else – into music in this score.
There are two movements for piano solo. One depicts the songs of the birds
of the Oriole family. The other, which is much longer, offers a musical portrait
of the USA’s most famous bird, the mockingbird. Both are played with
jaw-dropping virtuosity – and great vitality colour and poetry –
by Tzimon Barto. John Ryan, the LPO’s principal horn similarly inspires
admiration for his prodigious rendition of the ‘Appel interstellaire’.
There’s some amazing music in this score and Messiaen’s resourcefulness
and sense of musical colour is a matter of wonder. The seventh movement, which
is a depiction of Bryce Canyon and the bird, the steller’s jay, that
is found there is a movement of vibrant colour, great majesty and, in certain
episodes, of pulsating, dancing vitality. The immense brass chorales which
Messiaen uses to portray the majesty of the landscape convey the rugged grandeur
of the landscape superbly while the steller’s jay, with his brilliant
blue plumage, flashes across the musical landscape. From time to time the
music lands on richly augmented major chords until the movement concludes
with a huge, shimmering chord. This movement is a fantastic piece of musical
invention – the brass and percussion sonorities are often amazing –
and it’s extremely well done here.
The eighth movement is entitled ‘Les ressuscités et le chant de l’étoile
Aldébaran’ (‘The Resurrected and the Song of the Star Aldebaran’).
The star in question is, Messiaen explains, the brightest star in the constellation
of Taurus and he says that in this movement “the stars sing”.
The piece is a long, devoted slow movement in which the strings carry the
burden of the musical argument, their hushed music richly ornamented with
gentle birdsong arabesques and flickers of twinkling star light. The music
is radiant and serene. Eschenbach’s approach to it is daring. He’s
significantly more expansive than either Salonen or Constant. Constant takes
9:28 while in Salonen’s hands the movement lasts a mere 8:05. Eschenbach,
however, takes 11:57. That’s risky and might not come off under studio
conditions but here, in a live performance, he generates a marvellous, rapt
atmosphere.
The concluding movement, ‘Zion Park et la Cité Céleste’ is another
of Messiaen’s majestic, bird-populated aural landscapes. All manner
of birds native to the USA are heard carolling while the grandeur of the scene
is conveyed especially by means of a brass chorale, which the composer describes
as “full of light and majesty”. The music makes its steady, visionary
way, decorated by the bird songs, until we reach the culmination of over 1
½ hours of music. Then, in Messiaen’s words “With an A major chord
from the strings, as immutable as eternity, the chiming bells add their resonance
to the final joy.”
This is a remarkable score, containing vivid and visionary music. There may
be some small inaccuracies in this live performance but I doubt that anyone
other than the most acute listener, armed with a score, will notice. The playing
of both the named soloists and the rest of the ensemble is astonishingly accomplished.
The recorded sound is very good: you can hear an abundance of filigree detail
while Messiaen’s immense loud sonorities register with suitable impact.
Nigel Simeone’s notes are succinct and expert.
This is a brave choice of repertoire for the LPO to issue on their own label
and I hope that their enterprise is rewarded.
John
Quinn
Previous reviews: Brian
Wilson, Michael
Cookson & Dan
Morgan
|
Support us financially by purchasing
this from
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|