Olivier Messiaen

So this afternoon I went on up to Saint Thomas Church in Midtown to hear a recital of Olivier Messiaen's sixth and final work for organ, "Livre du Saint Sacrement." I'll be writing up some notes about it along with some other concerts I've seen this semester in my logs for the Composers' Forum, so I thought I'd do a little test-run with you guys.

In Olivier Messiaen's "Livre du Saint Sacrement" the composer seeks to speak heart-to-heart with his audience about God, nature, and music. He is able to use his synesthetic gift and ornithological obsession to this advantage. Messiaen's music is rarely music in the most base sense: it is an atmosphere and an echoing of all that surrounds him.

Olivier Messiaen's unique harmonic structures carefully filled with rich dissonances give way, at times, to incidental major triads. This is striking to those of us familiar with Messiaen. Yet, these "common chords" are unlike anything heard in Wagner or Strauss. They do not bring a resolution or a break from any dissonance; these chords simply are. Arising from these thick harmonies are subtle overtones dancing above the sustained organ parallel to bird songs above the din of a secluded forest. Through the use and variation of many vertical harmonies and organ stops, Messiaen presents all aspects and colors of music to the attention of the listener--an understanding of supernatural reality.

Interspersed within these large organ chords Messiaen is so famous for are quotations of medieval plainsong and, of course, birds chirping. Messiaen does not develop these melodic ideas in the same fashion Bartók would develop a Hungarian folk song, nor does he treat them as Stravinsky treats Russian folk music in his ballets and symphonies. Messiaen presents these melodies, and leaves them almost immediately. Though the contrast may be stark, these transitions from heavy harmonies to empty chants and bird songs is intrinsic to the concept Messiaen is writing about.

Olivier Messiaen does not write about "God, creator of Man" as Bach did in his organ toccatas preludes. Messiaen instead writes about "God, creator of Everything." This music is a confession of Messiaen's faith echoing natural law, both physical and cognitive, Pythagoras' "Music of the Spheres."

And that's what I think about that. Right now I'm listening to a recording of Messiaen's "Quartuor pour la fin du temps" ("Quartet for the End of Time"). It's for piano, violin, cello, and clarinet. He wrote it while in a German POW camp during WWII and chose the instruments because those are the ones he could find among the fellow prisoners and guards.

Titles bore me

Maybe I'm not cut out to be a blogger.  I find few instances where I feel a need to say something that can be put down in writing.  Most of what I want to say, I say out loud whether anyone's listening or not.  Perhaps if I force myself to keep up on this I'll be able to write about more little things, like I'm about to do …

Musically, things are going quite nicely, as usual.  In just two short weeks I managed to start and complete a short piano trio (piano, violin, and cello).  I wanted to expand it, but Youngmi convinced me to leave it where it is and follow it with another movement.  What I just composed will be read and recorded a week from next Wednesday, so I'll be able to show it to you then.  Why do we have a verb for presenting a sight but not for presenting a sound?  I won't ever be able to show you my music - I can play it, but that's not what I'm trying to do.  I'm trying to "listen" you my newest piano trio.  That is, I'm trying to create a situation in which it will be possible for you to listen to the movement; a movement that involves no physical motion except for the sound waves hitting your ear drums.  Whew!  Music can be so complicated sometimes.  I like what Frank Zappa once said about writing music:

  A composer is someone who goes around forcing his will

          on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance

          of unsuspecting musicians.

We're a manipulative bunch.

In other news between the frequencies of 20 and 20,000 Hz, I'm really getting into this sound design course I'm taking.  It's not that I'm suddenly aspiring to be a Hollywood sound editor like Frank Warner or my professor, but it wouldn't be a bad life.  I spent a good chunk of the morning in a Foley booth trying to recreate the sound of Mrs. Doubtfire frantically slopping on perfume and falling off a chair.  It was great!

I know most people don't give any noises not considered musical a second thought, but I do.  I suppose I've always paid attention to sounds.  Now I"m starting to hear the spaces I'm in.  I don't just meant the clinking of a subway train rolling down the tracks or the ear-splitting squeal of worn brake pads as it arrives at a station.  I'm hearing the way these sounds interact with the environment and with each other and even with no acute noises I'm beginning - just beginning - to hear empty spaces.  I won't be dogmatic about my view (again, a linguistic bias towards sight over sound) and demand others feel the same way.  I couldn't care less about how  other people hear the world, I already know sound is a very important sense to most.  I'm not gonna get all Cagean about it either and try to classify all audible waves as music.  It is what it is, and I like it.

Here's Dani and me dressed as ceiling fans.  Our t-shirts say "Go Ceiling!"  (Get it?)