Today is the 100th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen’s birthday, and since the classical-music world likes nothing better than anniversaries for use as organizing principles/marketing tools (“Bernstein’s 90th!’ ’90th? What about waiting till the 100th?’ ’90th!’…), this blog is going to join in the fun. Also because Messiaen’s bold, vivid music is some of the most immediately identifiable music in history.
Although, maybe not. Here in Chicago, the University of Chicago had an expansive Messiaen festival earlier this season, but that is, basically, it. No Saint Francois at Lyric Opera, no big choral works at the Chicago Symphony, and the Chicago Chamber Musicians haven’t programmed the Quartet for the End of Time.
Maybe this is another way of hearing a composer, when they’re programmed when they can be accomodated in a schedule, and not as some overstuffed feast. I can imagine music lovers gorging on a Messiaen festival spread among each ensemble in the city, but the average concertgoer would probably think there’d been some sort of collusion at work, and that it was now time to call Patrick Fitzgerald in to investigate. (He would find nothing.) So, one Messiaen festival is enough, I suppose, but dang if I wouldn’t have liked to have a Des Canyons des Etoiles somewhere along the way.
Still, I wish I was in London, where the Ensemble InterContemporain plays a centenary concert with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Pierre Boulez.
Esa-Pekka Salonen on Messiaen and the Turangalila Symphony:
Pierre Boulez on Messiaen’s reception in the US “People were enraged by that”:
Oiseaux Exotiques played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Ensemble InterContemporain, Boulez:
Aimard in the dixieme of the Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jesus: