Nine Lessons with Olivier Messiaen : La nativité du Seigneur on DVD
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
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)
