Olivier Messiaen was, without question, one of the greatest, most original and most influential composers of the twentieth century. The venerable New York critic and composer Virgil Thomson wrote of Messiaen’s music: “What strikes one right off on hearing any of his pieces is the power these have of commanding attention. They do not sound familiar; their textures … are fresh and strong. … And though a certain melodic banality may put one off no less than the pretentious mysticism of his titles may offend, it is not possible to come in contact with any of his major productions without being aware that one is in the presence of a major musical talent. Liking it or not is of no matter.”

 

 

OLIVIER MESSIAEN

Born in Avignon, December 10, 1908 – Died in Paris, April 27, 1992

 

L’ascension

 

Messiaen was a mystic to the core of his being, and believed that through music he could communicate “lofty sentiments … and in particular, the loftiest of all, the religious sentiments exalted by the theology and truths of our Catholic faith.” Profoundly Catholic since childhood, Messiaen drew strength from a deep and unshakeable faith; nevertheless, he seemed to embrace pagan elements as well. His professed goal was “an iridescent music, one that will delight the auditory senses with delicate, voluptuous pleasures … that lead the listener gently towards that theological rainbow which is the ultimate goal of music.” These concepts have been given expression in such monumental works as the Quartet for the End of Time (1941), the Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (1944), the five-hour stage extravaganza Saint François d’Assise (1983), and the ten-movement, seventy-five-minute Turangalîla-Symphony on tonight’s program.

 

One of Messiaen’s earliest works of this type is L’ascension. It lasts under half an hour, but embodies many of the concepts just mentioned. Messiaen wrote L’ascension, subtitled Four Symphonic Meditations, in early 1932 while he was still just 23 years old. A year later he orchestrated the score, and the first performance was given in the Salle Rameau in Paris under the direction of Robert Siohan on February 9, 1935. In 1933-1934 Messiaen arranged the Four Meditations for solo organ, including a completely new third movement. The composer gave the first performance at the organ of Saint-Antoine-des-Quinze-Vingts in Paris on January 29, 1935.Tonight we hear a hybrid performance, with the organ versions of nos. 1 and 4 and the original orchestral scores for nos. 2 and 3. Each movement is preceded in the score by a quotation.

 

No. 1 (“Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee,” John 17:1) L’ascension’s opening movement consists of just 22 bars of music, yet, due to its extremely slow tempo, lasts about six minutes. There is little sense of pulse, or time, or space, inviting meditation and thoughts of the divine.

 

No. 2 (“We supplicate thee, O God, … make us live in heaven in spirit,” from Mass of the Ascension, Collect)

The form is a simple rondo (ABACA): The opening material returns twice, each time in a different scoring. The first presentation is for woodwinds, the second time it has an accompaniment of flowing strings, and the third time it is heard ecstatically over a bed of shimmering strings and cymbals. In between we hear a long solo for English horn (B section) and later a passage evocative of birdsong (C), depicted by chattering woodwinds in their upper range.

 

No. 3 (“The Lord is gone up with the sound of a trumpet … O clap your hands, all ye people! Shout unto God with loud songs of triumph!” Psalm 47)

This is the only movement with a regular rhythmic pulse, and the only one of the four that requires the full orchestra. The opening trumpet fanfare recurs several times. For the concluding “dance of joy” Messiaen employs fugato.

 

No. 4 (“Father, … I have manifested thy name to men. … And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to thee.” John 17:6, 11)

L’ascension concludes with another movement like the first  ̶  extremely slow, nearly without pulse, meditative, contemplative. In its orchestral form, the movement is written for strings alone. New York Philharmonic program annotator James Keller describes it as “a sonic picture in which the … melody, surely the musical embodiment of Christ, hovers ethereally in the distance while the dense accompanying chords … remain earthbound.”

 

 

Turangalîla-Symphony

 

The Turangalîla-Symphony was composed between 1946 and 1948 as a commission by Serge Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Leonard Bernstein conducted the first performance on December 2, 1949. It is scored for a very large orchestra, which includes an exceptional number and variety of keyboard and percussion instruments. The keyboard department includes a piano part of soloistic proportions, glockenspiel, celesta and vibraphone, all of whose combined sounds reproduce approximately the effect of a Balinese gamelan ensemble. Another special tone color in the Turangalîla-Symphony comes from the ondes Martenot, an electronic keyboard with a strange, mystical sound invented by Maurice Martenot in 1920. It uses an oscillator to produce pitches, one at a time.

 

Messiaen explained the meaning of “turangalîla” as a combination of two Sanskrit words: “turanga,” meaning time which flows, movement or rhythm; and “lîla,” meaning a kind of cosmic love involving acts of creation, destruction and reconstruction, the play of life and death. The composer thus saw his symphony as “a song of love, a hymn to joy,” a concept enlarged by biographer Robert Sherlaw Johnson to mean “a superhuman and abandoned joy, a fatal, irresistible love, transcending all and suppressing all outside of itself. Johnson also sees the symphony as “a vast musical painting, affording glimpses of a surrealistic dream world where love and death, pain and ecstasy or the sensuous world of lovers and the horrors of Edgar Allan Poe come together in stark contrast.”

 

Superimposition of rhythmic and melodic ideas, and dynamic contrasts of tone colors, textures and rhythms form the essential compositional elements of the Turangalîla-Symphony. A work of such length and scope requires elaborate means of organic unity. A few basic guidelines will help guide the listener through the underlying structure.

 

The ten movements can be divided into three main groups, with the first movement as an introduction where two of the four “cyclic themes” are presented: 1) the “statue theme” (slowly moving trombone chords – these evoke for the composer the image of awesome old Mexican monuments) and 2) the “flower theme” (clarinet arabesques played pianissimo – smooth, curved, like the petals of a flower). The first main group of movements consists of the even-numbered ones (2, 4, 6, 8), stylistically unified by the cyclic theme of love. This theme emerges in its full-fledged form in the sixth movement, and is developed in the eighth. The fifth and tenth movements form the second group, related by their mood of joyous exaltation. The composer says of the fifth movement: “In order to understand the extravagance of this piece, it must be understood that the vision of true lovers is for them a transformation, and a transformation on a cosmic scale.”

 

The remaining movements are entitled “Turangalîla I,” “Turangalîla II” and “Turangalîla III.” Sinister elements – death, pain, anxiety and terror – are represented here, suggested by Poe’s famous story “The Pit and the Pendulum,” according to Messiaen. In these movements, especially in “Turangalîla III,” Messiaen uses highly complex rhythmic techniques including cumulative superimposition, non-retrogradable rhythms, rhythmic canons, augmentation and diminution. The technical details need concern only music theorists; listeners are invited to let the music wash over them in a panoply of sensuous colors and textures, which provide a soaring, mystic vision of cosmic love.

 

© Robert Markow

 

KENT NAGANO

CONDUCTOR

Kent Nagano has established an international reputation as one of the most insightful and visionary interpreters of both the operatic and symphonic repertoire. Since 2006 he is Music Director of the OSM, a contract extended until 2020, and was General Music Director of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich from 2006 to 2013. He became Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in 2013. Since 2015, he has been General Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Hamburg State Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra.

 

Born in California, Kent Nagano spent his early professional years in Boston, working in the opera house and as Assistant Conductor to Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He was Music Director of the Opéra national de Lyon (1988-1998), Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000), Associate Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1990-1998) and Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000 to 2006 and remains their Honorary Conductor. Kent Nagano was the first Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera from 2003 to 2006. As a much sought-after guest conductor, Maestro Nagano has worked with most of the world’s finest orchestras – the Vienna, Berlin and New York Philharmonics, Chicago Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle and Leipzig Gewandhaus and at leading opera houses including the Opéra national de Paris, Berlin State Opera, Metropolitan Opera and Semperoper Dresden. He has won two Grammy awards for his recording of Kaija Saariaho’s L’ amour de loin with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and for Busoni’s Doktor Faust, recorded with the Opéra national de Lyon, among other awards.

 

In 2013, he was named Great Montrealer by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, and he received the insignia of Grand Officer of the Order of Quebec.

 

Recent recordings with the OSM: Danse macabre, with OSM Concertmaster Andrew Wan (Decca); the first complete recording of L’Aiglon by Honegger and Ibert, with soloists including Anne-Catherine Gillet, Marc Barrard and Étienne Dupuis (Decca); Symphony and New Works for Organ and Orchestra, with Olivier Latry, OSM Organist Emeritus, and Jean-Willy Kunz, Organist in Residence (Analekta); Complete Violin Concertos of Saint-Saëns, with OSM Concertmaster Andrew Wan (Analekta).

 

Recent tours with the OSM: in March, 2016, coast to coast American tour including a concert at Carnegie Hall; Asian tour in October 2014, European tour in March 2014; South American tour in 2013; Concerts at the Edinburgh International Festival on August 16-18, 2011; Concert at Carnegie Hall on May 14, 2011.

 

PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD

PIANO

Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time, and as a uniquely significant performer of piano repertoire from every age, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career.

 

He performs throughout the world each season with major orchestras under conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Peter Eötvös, Sir Simon Rattle, and Vladimir Jurowski. He has been invited to curate, direct, and perform in a number of residencies, with projects at Carnegie Hall, New York’s Lincoln Center, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, the Lucerne Festival, Mozarteum Salzburg, Cité de la musique in Paris, and London’s Southbank Centre. Aimard was the Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 2009 to 2016, where his final season was highlighted by a performance of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux, featuring concerts programmed from dawn to midnight.

 

This season sees Pierre-Laurent continue his trio partnership with Mark Simpson and Antoine Tamestit, and the development of an innovative programme of concerts for the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. He also performs with The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Paavo Järvi in Taiwan. In addition to engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra, Aimard joins the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen for a series of concerts entitled ‘Inspirations’. He continues his life-long association with the music of Messiaen, performing the composer’s works worldwide. Aimard is also a member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste.

 

Aimard has collaborated closely with many leading composers including George Benjamin, Boulez, Carter, Kurtág and Stockhausen, and enjoyed a long association with Ligeti, recording his complete works for piano. Most recently, he performed the world premiere of piano works by Kurtág at a celebration of the composer’s 90^th birthday. In 2015, he launched a major online resource centred on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music, with filmed masterclasses and performances of the Études and other works by Ligeti in collaboration with Klavier-Festival Ruhr. (www.explorethescore.org)

 

Pierre-Laurent Aimard has made many highly successful and award-winning albums. To his recordings for Deutsche Grammophon of “The Liszt Project” in 2011 and Debussy’s Préludes in 2012, a new recording of Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Book 1 was added to his discography in 2014.

 

ESTELLE LEMIRE

ONDES MARTENOT

Ondes Martenot performer and composer Estelle Lemire graduated from the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in Montreal after extensive musical studies. A student of Jean Laurendeau, she was awarded the First Prize in Ondes Martenot Performance in 1988 and studied composition under Gilles Tremblay, receiving the First Prize in that discipline in 1991. As a soloist and chamber musician, she performs mainly in Canada and in the United States. She has collaborated with conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Alexis Hauser, Kelly Corcoran, Richard Carrick, Owen Underhill, Mario Bernardi, Robert Spano, and Giorgio Magnanensi, and has recorded for Radio-Canada/CBC and for the SNE and ATMA labels. Her repertoire includes solo pieces, chamber music, concertos, and various orchestral works into which the Ondes is integrated. In addition to playing staple works from the Ondes repertoire, including pieces by Olivier Messiaen, Arthur Honneger, André Jolivet, Darius Milhaud, Edgard Varèse, Tristan Murail, Claude Vivier, Gilles Gobeil, and Jonny Greenwood, Estelle Lemire has given premiere performances of new works by Canadian composers Gilles Tremblay, Jean Lesage, Silvio Palmieri, Serge Provost, Christopher Butterfield, John Oswald, Brian Cherney, Marc Patch, and Gabriel Dharmoo. She is co-founder of the Société pour le développement des ondes Martenot (SDOM) with ondists Suzanne Binet-Audet and Jean Laurendeau, and has been a member of the Ensemble d’ondes de Montréal. As a composer, her catalogue comprises more than 50 works, notably Miniatures for string quartet, which represented Canada at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in 1995, Mémoire/Éclaircie for large ensemble, nominated for Best New Work of the Year at the 2008 Opus Awards, and she was one of 19 composers to take part in the Symphonie du millénaire recently re-orchestrated by Walter Boudreau for the 2017 MNM Festival. She is the recipient of grants and commissions from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, CBC, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Estelle Lemire currently teaches Ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, the only class of its kind in North America.

 

HANS-OLA ERICSSON

ORGAN

Hans-Ola Ericsson was born in Stockholm in 1958. He studied organ and composition in his native city, in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), and subsequently in the United States, Venice, and Paris. In 1989, he was appointed Full Professor of Organ Performance at the School of Music in Piteå, which is affiliated to the Luleå Uni­versity of Technology, Sweden.

 

Hans-Ola Ericsson has distinguished himself on the international music scene, both as a performer and a composer, excelling in a wide range of styles that span early to contemporary music, and always looking to infuse his playing with historically informed practices. No other organist in the last decade has given premieres of as many contemporary works as Ericsson. He has worked closely with John Cage, György Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, and others, producing definitive interpretations of these composers’ organ music. He per­forms throughout Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, and in other countries world­wide. He is recognized for his superb artistry and for his insightful interpretations, which have generated numerous award-winning albums, including his highly acclaimed recording of the complete organ works of his teacher, Olivier Messiaen.

 

In recent years, many of his works have received first performances, including a church opera, several pieces for organ and electronics, works of chamber music, and choral compositions.

 

In 1996, Hans-Ola Ericsson was appointed Permanent Guest Professor at the University of Arts in Bremen, and in 2000 became a member of the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. Since 2011, he is appointed Full Professor of Organ Performance and University Organist of the renowned Schulich School of Music of McGill University. He also fulfills a busy schedule of engagements worldwide, as a concert organist, composer, and teacher.