TEMPO http://journals.cambridge.org/TEM Additional services for TEMPO: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Record Reviews TEMPO / Volume 212 / Issue 212 / April 2000, pp 55 - 61 DOI: 10.1017/S0040298200007683, Published online: 23 November 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0040298200007683 How to cite this article: (2000). TEMPO, 212, pp 55-61 doi:10.1017/S0040298200007683 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/TEM, IP address: 131.251.254.13 on 25 Feb 2014 Record Reviews MESSIAEN: St Francois d'Assise. Jose van Dam keep one's attentiveness tenterhooked on the (St Francois), Dawn Upshaw (L'Ange), Urben music with the same concentration (phones ring, Malmberg (Frere Leon), John Aler (Frere Massee), cars pass, dogs bark). Although the sheer sincerity, Akos Banlaky (Frere Sylvestre), Tom Krause the dignity, of the music is still directly commu- (Frere Bernard), Dirk D'Ase (Frere Rufin), Guy nicative, the repetitive nature of much of St Renard (Frere Elie), Chris Merritt (Le Lepreux), Francois eventually begins to irritate rather than Arnold Schoenberg Choir, Halle Orchestra hypnotize. The constant irruption of Messiaen's cond. Kent Nagano. Deutsche Grammophon beloved birds (he reckoned he had included 445 176-2 (4 CDs). virtually all the calls he had notated in the course of his long life) threatens to reduce them to St Francois d'Assise is the opus summum of Olivier mannerism. You have to be there, to participate Messiaen's life. Not only because it is very nearly in St Francois and be swept along by it; compact his last major work (he composed it between discs can convey the excitement only as approx- 1975 and 1983), but because it embraces in one imately as television does the thrill of a sporting vast, refining apotheosis almost everything in his event. Here the 119-part orchestra and 150 music: it sits atop and glorifies his career just as choristers the score requires are an indulgence, much as he intended that career to be a glorifi- not a necessity; in performance they offer their cation of his god. own contribution to Messiaen's sense of joyous Messiaen avoided calling the work an opera. extravagance. Instead, St Francois d'Assise bears the legend 'Scenes The attenuation of its impact is not through franciscaines en trois actes et huit tableaux'. As a any fault of this passionate recording, made live staged oratorio it blurs formal boundaries, but the at the Salzburg Festival in August 1998 (though essence of the piece is simpler yet: it is an extended doubtless patched here and there). Jose van Dam (five-hour) ritual, a gesture of religious devotion. is heroic in the title role, which he created in Messiaen's intention — 'an act of temerity', he 1983, Dawn Upshaw is a radiant Angel; and the said — was 'to describe, scene by scene, the infusion other soloists are marked by varying degrees of of grace into the inner soul of one of the greatest excellence. Nagano, who studied the score with of all saints'. His means are relatively straight- Messiaen for months, maintains the pace expertly, forward: St Francois progresses by alternating long despite the occasional longueur — this must be melismata in the strings, often supported by ondes one of the best things he has done. And the martenot, with Messiaen's ecstatic birdcalls — it's Halle Orchestra, now safely handed over to almost that simple. And like the arcane mysteries Mark Elder, should put up their xylophone of Galina Ustvolskaya's music, St Francois is a pri- player for a mention in despatches. vate act, a communication between initiates and Martin Anderson their deity; listeners are irrelevant. To some extent, that likewise makes criticism redundant. You can't judge the piece according OHANA: Office des Oracles; Messe. Choeur Contemp- to the standards of dramatic development that orain and Musicatreize dir. Roland Hayrabedian. stage presentation might suggest, and begrudging Opus 111 OPS30-246. its harmonic near-stasis is similarly pointless. And yet, in spite of everything — in spite of its length Roland Hayrabedian is well established as one of (or perhaps because of it), its ascetic abstraction, France's leading conductors of vocal music, having its circumscribed musical language - St Fmn(ois founded the Choeur Contemporain d'Aix-en- d'Assise has an emotional intensity that makes it Provence in 1978 and the vocal and instrumental more affecting than anything else in Messiaen's ensemble Musicatreize in 1987. With a reper- oeuvre: my only live encounter with the music toire ranging from the the Renaissance to the brought me to tears — the first time ever I had felt contemporary, he is particularly noted for his any genuine emotion in his music. interpretations of new music and has recorded Listening to the work at home on CD, and many of the vocal works of Maurice Ohana — with the best will in this world, it is difficult to the present CD being the most recent. http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 25 Feb 2014 IP address: 131.251.254.13 56 Record Reviews Hayrabedian's other recordings of Ohana's vocal vocal force comprises more than 60 singers; a music include the composer's last completed quartet of female soloists (two sopranos, a mezzo work Avoaha (1991), for mixed chorus, 2 and a contralto) and two mixed choirs, one of 40 pianos, percussion, and Lys de madrigaux (1976) voices which includes two boy soloists, and for female chorus and ensemble, also available another of 16 in which male voices predominate. on Opus 111 OPS30-109. Prior to Ohana's death They are supported by an instrumental ensem- in 1992, Hayrabedian made a number of record- ble of 14 players comprising flutes (doubling ings under the supervision of the composer, all piccolos), clarinets, trombones, violin, viola, of which are still available: the oratorio setting of piano, organ and a large percussion section of Federico Garcia Lorca's poem Llanto por Igado pitched and unpitched skins, metal and wood. Sanchez Mejias (1950) for baritone, narrator, Divided spatially into three groups, each of mixed chorus and orchestra, coupled with the 1967 which is directed by their own conductor, the chamber opera Syllabaire pour Phedre (Calliope voices and ensemble are dispersed among the CAL9877); Swan Song (1988), Nuit de Pouchkiue listening public so as to avoid the conventional (1990), Tomheau de Louize Labe 'O beaux yens separation between performers and audience. bruns' (1990), all for 12 voices SATB, are coupled Implicit in the liturgical associations of the with the choral dyptych Lux noctis-Dies Solis work's title is the intention that all those present (1981-88) for four choral groups, organ and per- should be involved in a communal, ritual celebra- cussion (Calliope CAL9876); and the composer's tion, whether performers or audience, celebrants setting of Renaissance Spanish texts, Camigas or communicants. (1954) for mixed chorus and ensemble, is coupled In the manner of a pseudo-liturgy lasting with Stravinsky's Les twees (Pierre Verany more than 40 minutes, Office des Oracles 'consults' PV787032). a succession of 'oracles' from 'Alpha' to 'Omega' The human voice is central to Ohana's work posing the question as to the direction, purpose and the key to understanding his musical think- and meaning, if any, of musical art. The work is ing. Representing the single largest group in a an allegory of the compositional problems of con- prolific output spanning more than five decades, temporary music. Although the composer's the vocal works, dramatic and non-dramatic, implicit question is serious, the oracles, as might be reflect the development of a style which owes as expected, answer only in riddles, some of which much to the composer's Spanish, Andalusian are more comic than solemn. After a short intro- roots as to his French training and environment duction the composer consults the oracle of his and immersion in the Medieval and Renaissance own dreams in the second movement, 'Oniracle' repertoire. Ohana's vocal works are among those (an invented word which compresses 'onirique' most admired by another of France's leading and 'oracle') but quickly passes on to address composers of the post-World War II era, Henri two mythical monsters, a dragon and a minotaur. Dutilleux, who particularly praised Office des OraclesInstead of inspiring fear, the three-headed dragon for its vital angularity and brilliance of sound- of the third movement is made to look merely colour. In his vocal writing Ohana explored not ridiculous, producing mocking laughter (in the only many unorthodox techniques of vocal choral groups) through the uncoordinated production, including the disintegration of text movement of its heads, an effect which is created into onomatopoeic phonemes and morphemes, through the free superimposition of the three vocal but expanded the range of melodic expression and instrumental groups in aleatory counterpoint. by incorporating third-tone microintervals to Similarly the minotaur of the fourth movement is enhance conventional temperament. A distinctive unable to produce an answer, remaining trapped feature of Ohana's musical language, third-tones in its labyrinthine, Cretan prison. In the fifth are found in the traditional music of many movement, 'Son Chango', the composer seeks a Mediterranean cultures but are particularly char- solution from the African god Chango whose acteristic of Andalusian Flamenco and certain forest is reputed to possess magical attributes; the types of African folk music. These cultures also replying riddle suggests that ritual and magic influenced much of Ohana's treatment of rhythm, may provide a possible answer. Still inconclusive, his approach to percussive texture in the voice, the composer wonders, in 'Meteoracle', if a as well as in the instrumental medium and per- weather forecast might enlighten him, but the cussion.