Nine Lessons with Messiaen : La nativité du Seigneur on DVD

Nine Lessons with Olivier Messiaen : La nativité du Seigneur on DVD

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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26 July

Nine Lessons with Olivier Messiaen : La nativité du Seigneur on DVD,
performed by Jennifer Bate on the organ of Norwich Cathedral

Programme :

1. La vierge et l'enfant

2. Les bergers

3. Desseins éternels

4. Le verbe

5. Les enfants de Dieu

6. Les anges

7. Jésus accepte la souffrance

8. Les mages

9. Dieu parmi nous


La nativité du Seigneur is a strange piece, except seen as fairly static, winter-suited meditations, which rely on juxtaposition ('Les bergers' (mvt 2) or 'Le verbe' (mvt 4)), rather than development, or only on gradual, if essentially slow, re-working of the material at a microscopic level.

'Les enfants de Dieu' (mvt 5) is where the work first takes flight, although it then reduces to contemplation to close. 'Les anges' (mvt 6), with its scurrying or dance-like steps, also has a toccata, at its end.

We see Bate's hands, on the four manuals of the console, much before 'Jésus accepte le souffrance' (mvt 7), but this is the first and only time that we see the pedals (perhaps not much in use before then ?). It is succeeded by 'Les mages' (mvt 8), which re-visits earlier, somewhat fractured material.

'Dieu parmi nous' (mvt 9), after its bold opening bars, and a quieter re-statement of a familiar sequence, chirpingly and then, accretingly or consolidatingly, and via a wild prefiguring chord, builds towards the celebrated finish's testament - much used as an organ voluntary - to Pentecost and the power of the Holy Spirit, and the summative and echoing gestural pillars of the last chords.


As a DVD, it is equally strangely filmed, whatever benefits we might expect from seeing an organist perform, who was at the height of her powers.


[...]


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

At Lunch 1 : More than two centuries of the horn in chamber music

This review considers Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch 1 programme, given in Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
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6 December (Britten Sinfonia Tweet added, 22 December)

This review considers Britten Sinfonia’s programme for At Lunch 1, given at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, on Tuesday 1 December 2015 at 1.00 p.m.

At Lunch 1, heard at West Road Concert Hall (@WestRoadCH), was an intriguing piece of programming from Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) – past experience would lead one to expect no less ! It looked at the connections between, and influence or resonance of, Beethoven’s Horn Sonata* and Brahms’ so-called Sonatensatz (please see below), which was not published until 1906 (after his death) :

Regarding the origins of the latter, there is a lovely account (on the web-site of The Kennedy Center), of Brahms, at the age of twenty, meeting violinist Joseph Joachim (five years after hearing him perform Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Opus 61), Joachim spending time with him and effecting an introduction to Clara and Robert Schumann, and how the latter was to acclaim Brahms, and thereby make his name known, in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (in an article called ‘New Paths’, which appeared in the edition dated 23 October 1853).

As a result of meeting the Schumanns, as well as fellow composer Albert Dietrich, Brahms contributed a Scherzo** to a collaborative violin sonata, in honour of Joachim, and which was then presented to him : Dietrich wrote the first movement, and Schumann the second-movement Intermezzo and finale. This Scherzo is the Sonatensatz (which may sound grand in German, but just means a movement from a sonata).


1. Beethoven ~ Horn Sonata*, Opus 17 (1800)
2. Edward Nesbit (1986-) ~ Lifesize Gods (2015)
3. Brahms (1833-1897) ~ Sonatensatz (1853)
4. Huw Watkins (1976-) ~ Horn Trio (2008)


First, though, the Sinfonia’s principal pianist Huw Watkins and guest artist Richard Watkins on horn played (1) the Beethoven Horn Sonata*, Opus 17 (1800), after the latter had introduced it*** and, as we inevitably had an unvoiced query, answering it by telling us that they are no relation (though they first met through his having played with Huw’s brother ?).


Solo horn commences the sonata, which, in its opening, has strophic writing for the piano, with and around which the horn-player can then be both lyrical as well as declamatory (supported by the pianist). The writing of the Allegro moderato briefly gives us a moment of sadness, but Richard Watkins also brought out the score's considerable subtlety, and we could appreciate how the use of structure in the piece poses no obstacles to our appreciation of the instrument**, but is facilitative of its sound and of our embracing it.

The very short Poco adagio has the effect, in the minor key, of more explicitly using the form of call and response, from the horn to the piano, and of so serving as a transition to the Rondo finale, marked Allegro molto, and which is characterized by lively triplets in the piano part, to performing which Huw Watkins brought great delicacy (as to the whole).

The mood and expressiveness of the movement do vary up and down, but, if a little ponderously, it builds to a climax, and then – on the verge of seeking harmonic resolution – the players are faced with the hesitancy with which Beethoven’s writing presents them. Needless to say, they enacted the emotion of this delay to perfection, and could then bring the work to its due conclusion.

If one had more time and concentration, novels such as this one would follow up Cambridge English graduate and novelist Ali Smith's excellent The Accidental

Edward Nesbit introduced his work (2) Lifesize Gods (2015), newly commissioned by the Sinfonia in conjunction with Wigmore Hall, and (as he no doubt was to do at Wigmore Hall (@wigmore_hall) - please see below) confirmed the programme-notes in telling us that the title refers to Ali Smith’s novel How to be both, and her character Francesco del Cossa’s himself being commissioned (to make a fresco), but without adding more context – one guesses that one has to refer to the novel. He said that the first movement was very short, had been worked on this time last year, and used repetitions of bars, chords, or even notes, whereas the second had been through-composed.

Listen to the pre-concert talk w/ @EdNesbit recorded prior to London perf of his new work (apols for buzzing sound) https://t.co/iZlflkUAl2

— Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) December 22, 2015

In that opening section, one was aware of a sense that, amongst these repetitions, there was a trapped space between the aetherial writing for violin (the Sinfonia’s leader, Jacqueline Shave) and that, of a ‘light’ and disembodied character, for horn (Richard Watkins). As it developed, there were further contrasts, and momentum built, but it did not break free long. In the violin part, though, there came an impression of an air, or of a gig, and the direction became less restrained, even fantasy like, as the back of the movement felt to be broken open. Nonetheless, hesitation, and the recurrence of the repetitive elements, led us to an end.

Members of @BrittenSinfonia are warming up in the studio before performing @EdNesbit's Lifesized Gods live #NYNM pic.twitter.com/xIDMpZjhYs

— In Tune BBC Radio 3 (@BBCInTune) January 4, 2016

The second movement definitely felt inspired by dance, and there were to be reminders, first of Stravinsky, and then of Messiaen. Also, the motif of call and answer that had been part of the Beethoven sonata, as well as Nesbit's using, at one point, a massive suspension of the sound of the horn over quite staccato piano and a light pizzicato : grasping a sense of the whole, or of its structure, proved fairly difficult, however, and not conducive of attempting to take more notes. Lifesize Gods was well received, and Nesbit took a bow.

Come (3) the Brahms, and, despite a description of it as good fun – and harmless (by William Murdoch, quoted on the web-site of The Kennedy Center), those who know and love his writing for chamber combinations such as violin and piano, or cello and piano, will concur with the Center, in going on to say that, although written when Brahms was still very young, the music bears his characteristic qualities : rich harmonic vocabulary, insistent rhythmic vitality, a sure sense of motivic growth and full textures.


As Sinfonia leader Jacqueline Shave joined Huw Watkins as duo partner, one largely decided just to relish the Brahmsian flavour, so no note was made beyond :

* Vibrant, and at his spirited best

* Was this completed by Brahms elsewhere ?


Continuing with this attitude, one abandoned the idea of making review-notes for Huw Watkins’ striking (4) Horn Trio (2008), and fully engaged with the work, and later, to sum up the experience, simply Tweeted :

A terrific conclusion to @BrittenSinfonia's At Lunch 1 : @WatkinsHuw, performing his Horn Trio with Jacqueline Shave and Richard Watkins !

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 1, 2015

In his Horn Trio, @BrittenSinfonia's @WatkinsHuw gave us moments of true unease on Tuesday - in a work that breaks out, to symphonic effect.

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) December 3, 2015

End-notes

* Apparently (according to Wikipedia®), the score bears the title Sonata for Piano with Horn or Violoncello (Sonate pour le Forte-Piano avec un Cor ou Violoncelle), and thus listing the keyboard instrument first…

** Brahms’ contribution to the sonata, whose manuscript score had been kept by Joachim, was not released for publication until just before Joachim died, and the complete sonata was only published in 1935 (although Schumann had incorporated his part in it into his Violin Sonata No. 3).</

*** History has never stood in the way of a good story about Beethoven’s score being unready for a first performance (e.g. what was famously reported by Ignaz van Seyfried, about the solo part’s incompleteness, when the composer played his own Piano Concerto No. 3 (in C Minor, Op. 37), and he had the job of turning what pages there were).

Whatever may be true, of exactly when (and in what way) the sonata for horn virtuoso Giovanni Punto came to be written (and, so, whether calls for an encore were compromised by Beethoven’s having only written out the cello part, not his own), we may never know. However, it is maybe just as much part of a myth as the one about Mozart (not borne out by autograph scores), and perpetuated by Amadeus (1984) in its way, that his compositions were written straight out perfectly.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

An evening with David Owen Norris

A pre-concert talk by David Owen Norris about Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen at Easter at King's

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
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6 April

A pre-concert talk by David Owen Norris about Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen at Easter at King's

No, it's not an offshoot of that rather poor t.v. programme An Audience With..., but David visiting Cambridge to give a pre-concert talk about Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen, a work for two pianos, performed shortly afterwards and nearby in the chapel at King's College, where I sat with him for the performance.

I knew that he was hugely charismatic and entertaining, quite apart from being very informative from his wealth of knowledge, because I had heard him before, talking about and around the theme of Good King Wenceslas in York a few years back as part of its Chrsimas Early Music Festival. David is also well known as a broadcaster, and I dimly remember a regular quirky little slot that he had on Radio 3 on a weekday afternoon back, I think, in the late 80s or early 90s (this link will take you where more information is available), but the opportunity didn't present itself to get the answer directly to what that was and when.

He and I happened to talk, because I was outside the venue (seeing no reason to take a seat yet), and he came out, as I gathered, to take the air. Not wishing to venture a question regarding the Messiaen, if he were, in fact, collecting his thoughts, I sought permission, and, saying that I had first heard it on a recording made by the Labèque sisters, asked about the availability of recordings, saying was it under-represented. David said that there probably around 10, and we agreed that that was probably enough, but also that, as to its appearance in recital halls, the work is not performed very often.


To be continued


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