MESSIAEN Les Corps glorieux (The Glorified Bodies) Messe de la Pentecôte Tom Winpenny, Organ Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) The structure of L’Ange aux parfums, cast in seven Messe de la Pentecôte was composed as an organ sections, reflects that of the entire work. The opening mass for the feast of Pentecost – the descent of the Holy Les Corps glorieux • Messe de la Pentecôte monody returns in the third section in the pedal – adorned Spirit on the Apostles. Its movements correspond in Olivier Messiaen was a towering figure in 20th-century organ, La Nativité du Seigneur (1935), Les Corps glorieux by shimmering manual chords – and as a fleeting sixth character and duration to the improvised elements of European music. His highly personal musical language drew (The Glorified Bodies) concerns resurrection. It develops section. The second and fifth sections present another Messiaen’s church duties. heavily on the natural world, the music of Eastern cultures textures, harmonic modes and Hindu rhythms similar to theme in the pedal whilst the rhythm of each hand’s Entrée: Les langues de feu announces – at the and, above all, his devout Catholicism. A talented pianist, those in La Nativité, but its movements are more rigorously accompanying chords is given in mirror image. The rapid priests’ entrance – the fire of the Holy Spirit through a bold Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1919 at a interlinked. For many years Messiaen considered it his fourth and final sections are two-part inventions, depicting clarion call, played as a recitative in the pedals. The remarkably early age, and in 1927 joined Marcel Dupré’s favourite work – perhaps a summation of his first incense rising before God, and are based on fragments of movement adapts ancient Greek rhythms, and the organ class, although he had never previously set eyes on compositional period. Les Corps glorieux was completed in the initial material. interjections on the manuals suggest sparks of flames. an organ console. In the first class, Dupré demonstrated the late August 1939, shortly before Messiaen was called up The central movement, Combat de la Mort et de la Vie, The core of the work – Offertoire: Les choses visibles et instrument, and Messiaen returned the following week, for military service at the outbreak of the Second World is a vivid two-fold representation of the battle between life invisibles – marks the offering of bread and wine at the altar. having learnt Bach’s Fantasia in C minor to an impressive War. Captured in June 1940, he was transported to the and death. A low, snarling melody opens the movement, The opening section juxtaposes three ‘personalities’ – motifs standard. In 1931 he was appointed Organist at the Église Görlitz prisoner-of-war camp in Silesia. The enforced preceding a forceful toccata featuring ascending and based on Hindu rhythms. An expressive recitative precedes de la Sainte-Trinité (La Trinité) in Paris, with support for his separation from the organ loft stimulated Messiaen’s descending chords which build to a monumental climax – a complex construction of chords in opposing rhythmic candidacy from Charles Tournemire and Charles-Marie interest in birdsong which, significantly, he incorporated the vanquishing of death. The soaring melody of the permutations against an isorhythmic (independently- Widor – two of the city’s eminent organists. He would remain into the Quatuor pour la fin du temps, composed in the second tableau – heard in a flute stop – unfolds quietly and repeated) pedal line. Low Cs on a strident 16 foot reed stop – at La Trinité for more than sixty years, until his death. camp. He later stated ‘It is an instinctive passion. Birdsong tranquilly, portraying the serenity of resurrected life. It is in Messiaen’s words representing ‘the Beast of the Messiaen’s early organ music and works such as the is also my refuge.’ Most of his compositions in the 1940s marked ‘in the sun-drenched peace of Divine Love’. Apocalypse’ – bookend the following section. The recitative song cycle Poèmes pour Mi (1936-37) established him as (he was released in 1941) centred on the piano – his Force et Agilité des Corps glorieux is a nimble dance, is repeated against pseudo-birdsong, before another theme an important figure in contemporary music. Captured while imagination fired by the young pianist in his class at the in octaves, conveying the strength and agility of the – imitating water droplets – heralds the substantial coda. serving as a medical auxiliary during World War II, he Paris Conservatoire, Yvonne Loriod, whom he would marry resurrected. It employs the theme heard in the L’Ange aux Consécration: Le don de Sagesse opens with composed the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940-41) for after the death of his wife, the composer Claire Delbos. In parfums. Rising chords herald the dance’s conclusion; the contrasting sonorities alongside a pedal clarion solo. performance with three fellow prisoners of war. On his his weekly organ improvisations at La Trinité he began final sustained chord fades into eternity. Again based on Hindu rhythms, this idea alternates with a release he was appointed Professor of Harmony (and later experimenting with more abstract music, incorporating The joy and brightness of the resurrected is chromatically-adapted plainsong line, heard on a bold Professor of Composition) at the Paris Conservatoire. An birdsong and mathematical procedures. Messe de la demonstrated in Joie et Clarté des Corps glorieux by clarinet stop. inspiring teacher, from 1949 Messiaen taught at the Pentecôte (Pentecost Mass) is a distillation of Messiaen’s Messiaen’s use of unashamedly jazzy harmonies. An One of Messiaen’s earliest works to incorporate pure annual Darmstadt Summer School, where his influence liturgical extemporisations of the late 1940s, and prefigures improvisatory solo trumpet melody dominates the birdsong, Communion: Les oiseaux et les sources presents was profound. His pupils included the composers Pierre his even more radical compositions of the 1950s. movement: it alternates with the reflective sections, but songs of the cuckoo, nightingale and blackbird. The outer Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and George Benjamin. Les Corps glorieux opens with a flowing single-voiced concludes with an exuberant flourish. sections’ opulent passages quote harmonic progressions The underlying principles of Messiaen’s highly-individual (monodic) movement – Subtilité des Corps glorieux – An austere conclusion, Le Mystère de la Sainte- from the contemporaneous Turangalîla-Symphonie and style are set out in his two treatises: the Technique de mon reflecting the suppleness of resurrected bodies. Trinité is replete with Trinitarian symbolism. The voices of Cinq Rechants, whilst free lines quote piano works such as langage musical (1944) and the Traité de rythme, de Messiaen’s first monody, it is an elaboration of the opening the trio texture represent (from the bass) the Father, Son Cantéyodjayâ. The highest and lowest registers of the couleur, et d’ornithologie (unfinished at the time of his phrases of the plainsong Salve Regina, applying rhythmic and Holy Spirit, whilst the movement’s tripartite structure instrument combine for the final chord – signifying divine death, and completed by his wife Yvonne Loriod). Rather additions and chromatic alterations, and is played on the corresponds to the division of the nine-fold Kyrie eleison. presence throughout heaven and earth. than attempting to impose his own style on his pupils, he organ’s diverse and luminous cornet registers. Elements of The unusual sonority – a combination of very high and Sortie: Le vent de l’Esprit depicts the rushing, mighty would encourage them to find their own musical voice. The the theme reappear in the final movement. low registers – represents, according to the composer, ‘a wind of Pentecost. In the central section, a chorus of larks individuality of Messiaen’s music has thus always set it Three textures combine in Les Eaux de la Grâce to double halo of mystery’. The middle voice is given greater features: simultaneously, manual chords ascend in pitch apart from that of other composers. depict the flowing waters described in the book of prominence: ‘alone, the Son draws near to us visibly yet diminish in rhythmic value, whilst the pedal reverses Composed more than a decade apart, Les Corps Revelation. The rising pedal line (at a high register, heard through his incarnation.’ this procedure. A searing cadenza across the full compass glorieux (1939) and Messe de la Pentecôte (1949-50) in the middle of the texture) opposes the tonality of the left of the organ precedes the final, devastating chord. represent two stylistically different periods of Messiaen’s hand’s undulating pattern. Above, harmonised in one of music. A successor to the composer’s Christmas cycle for Messiaen’s characteristic modes, soars a graceful melody. Tom Winpenny Scriptural quotations 7 VII: Le Mystère de la Sainte-Trinité (The Mystery of the Holy Trinity) Ô Père tout puissant, qui, avec votre Fils unique et le Saint Esprit, êtes un seul Dieu ! Non dans l’unité d’une seule Les Corps glorieux (The Glorified Bodies) personne, mais dans la Trinité d’une seule substance. Sept visions brèves de la vie des ressuscités (Seven short visions of the life of the resurrected) Missal, Preface for Holy Trinity O Father all-powerful, who with your only Son and the Holy Spirit are one God! Not in the unity of one person, but in 1 I: Subtilité des Corps glorieux (Subtlety of the glorified bodies) the Trinity of one substance. Leur corps, semé corps animal, ressuscitera corps spirituel. Et ils seront purs comme les anges de Dieu dans le ciel. 1 Corinthians 15: 44; Matthew 22: 30 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. And they are pure as the angels of God in heaven. Messe de la Pentecôte (Pentecost Mass) 2 II: Les Eaux de la Grâce (The Waters of Grace) 8 I: Entrée: Les langues de feu (Introit: The Tongues of Fire) L’Agneau, qui est au milieu du trône, conduira les élus aux sources des eaux de la vie.