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LINN RECORDS, GLASGOW ROAD, WATERFOOT, GLASGOW G76 0EQ UK t: +44 (0)141 303 5027/9 f: +44 (0)141 303 5007 e: [email protected] William Conway – artistic director; cello OLIVIER MESSIAEN Alexander Janiczek – violin CHAMBER WORKS Sarah Bevan Baker – violin Catherine Marwood – viola Rosemary Elliot – flute Maximiliano Martín – clarinet Philip Moore – piano BCC Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (Quartet for the end of Time) q I Liturgie de cristal (Liturgy of crystal) 2.42 w II Vocalise, pour l’Ange qui announce la fin du Temps (Vocalise for the Angel who announces the end of Time) 4.34 e III Abîme des oiseaux (The Abyss of the birds) 6.52 r IV Intermède (Interlude) 1.43 t V Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus (Praise to the Eternity of Jesus) 7.35 y VI Danse de la fureur pour les sept trompettes (Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets) 6.10 u VII Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps (Cluster of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of Time) 7.02 i VIII Louange à l'Immortalité de Jésus (Praise to the immortality of Jesus) 8.32 o Thème et variations 10.40 1) Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes 3.16 1! Fantaisie 8.16 1@ Le Merle noir 6.06 BCC Recorded at St Mary's Church, Haddington, 17th – 20th March 2007 Produced and Engineered by Philip Hobbs Post-production by Julia Thomas at Finesplice, UK Design by John Haxby With thanks to George Benjamin for his help with the interpretation of Fantaisie. 2 3 Quatuor pour la fin du Temps Messiaen recalled how he wrote the Quatuor in an interview with Antoine Goléa: Inspired by the visionary language of the Apocalypse, evoked in the movement titles, In the Stalag with me were a violinist, a clarinettist and the Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du Temps is one of the most remarkable works to cellist Etienne Pasquier. I wrote an unpretentious little trio for have come out of World War II, composed by a musician whose religious faith was them which they played to me in the washrooms, because the a constant inspiration, even in the most arduous circumstances. In May 1940 the clarinettist had kept his instrument and someone had given German army entered France, and Messiaen was among the thousands of French the cellist a cello with three strings. Emboldened by this first soldiers rounded up by the Germans: he was taken to a makeshift camp in a huge experiment, called ‘Intermède’, I gradually added the seven field to the west of Nancy. There he met other musicians, including the clarinettist movements which surround it, and it is thus that my Quatuor Henri Akoka and the cellist Etienne Pasquier. This produced an immediate burst pour la fin du Temps has a total of eight sections. … An upright of creativity from Messiaen: as Pasquier later recalled, “Messiaen composed a solo piano was brought into the camp, very out of tune, the keys of clarinet piece for Akoka which was to become the third movement of the Quatuor – which seemed to stick at random. On this piano I played my ‘Abîme des oiseaux.’” Quatuor pour la fin du Temps, in front of an audience of five thousand people – the most diverse mixture of all classes in In July 1940, Messiaen, Akoka and Pasquier were transported to Stalag VIII-A, a society – farmworkers, labourers, intellectuals, career soldiers, Prisoner of War camp near Görlitz, about 70 miles east of Dresden. Two movements doctors and priests. Never have I been listened to with such of what was to become the Quatuor had earlier incarnations: the ‘Louange’ for cello attention and such understanding. reused music from the Fête des belles eaux (written in 1937 for an ensemble of six This stirring account needs to be treated with a little caution. Two important details Ondes Martenot), and the final violin ‘Louange’ as the second part of the Diptyque were corrected by the cellist Etienne Pasquier, (interviewed by Hannelore Lauerwald), for organ (1930). The ‘Intermède’ was the first movement to be written in Stalag about the size of the audience and the state of his cello: VIII-A, and it was rehearsed by Akoka, Pasquier and the violinist Jean Le Boulaire in the camp’s washrooms in September 1940. Once the authorities found a piano [The first performance of the Quatuor took place] in the hut for Messiaen, he got down in earnest to composing the rest of the Quatuor, using that we used as the theatre. … All the seats were taken, about manuscript paper provided by one of the guards: Hauptmann Karl-Erich Brüll. four hundred in all, and people listened raptly, their thoughts turning inward, even those who may have been listening The instruments available to Messiaen presented a challenge in terms of blend to chamber music for the first time. The concert took place and balance, and his solution was to present them in different combinations: solo on Wednesday, 15 January 1941, at six in the evening. It was (clarinet), in duos (cello and piano, violin and piano), and trios (clarinet and strings). bitterly cold outside the hut, and there was snow on the ground After the extraordinary opening movement, the whole ensemble next plays together and on the rooftops. … Messiaen repeatedly claimed that there in the sixth movement, but in vehement unison and octaves; it’s only in the seventh were only three strings on my cello, but in fact I played on four movement that the full power of the ensemble is unleashed. strings. 4 5 A review appeared in Lumignon, the French-language camp newspaper, on 1 April The young Messiaen wrote to his friend and former classmate Jean Langlais before 1941. Under the headline ‘Première at the Camp’, this gives a fascinating description the concert, inviting him to come along to “make lots of enthusiastic noise and try to of the audience reaction, and recognizes that something special had taken place: get the piece encored, as it is one of my best.” Over the next few years, Delbos and Messiaen played the piece a number of times, and it was published in 1934. In terms It was our good fortune to have witnessed in this camp the first of structure, this is one of Messiaen’s more straightforward works: the theme is stated performance of a masterpiece. And what’s strange is that in a quietly and is followed by four increasingly animated variations, leading to a fifth prison barracks we felt just the same tumultuous and partisan which is a rapturous restatement of the opening, with the violin playing the theme atmosphere of some premières: latent as much with passionate an octave higher. But though the form may be quite traditional, the sound world of acclaim as with angry denunciation. And while there was this early work is entirely Messiaen’s own. The Theme and Variations was Messiaen's fervent enthusiasm on some rows, it was impossible not to sense first piece of instrumental chamber music. Unusually, its dedication was expressed in the irritation on others. Reminiscences of the time speak of a musical notation: his pet-name for Claire was ‘Mi’ and the first edition of the score reaction like this when one evening in 1913 at the Théâtre des prints this as the note ‘E’ (‘Mi’ in French), the highest open string on a violin. Champs-Elysées, Le Sacre du printemps was first performed. It’s often a mark of a work’s greatness that it has provoked conflict In 1933, Messiaen wrote another piece for violin and piano to play in concerts with on the occasion of its birth. … The last note was followed by Claire. The Fantaisie was long thought to have been lost, but it was rediscovered by a moment of silence which established the sovereign mastery Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen among the composer’s papers, and published early in 2007 of the music. by Durand. The first known performance – listed as the ‘1re audition’ in the Guide du Concert – took place at the Schola Cantorum in Paris on 18 March 1935, played Music for Violin and Piano: Theme and Variations; Fantaisie by Delbos and Messiaen. Composed at the same time as L’Ascension, it is a freer work Messiaen wrote his Theme and Variations in 1932 as a wedding present for his than the Theme and Variations, beginning with bold piano octaves that are followed by a new bride, Claire (Louise) Delbos – a talented musician in her own right. They descending motif on the violin, and then a long arching melody. The Fantaisie develops married in June 1932 and moved into a new home at 77, rue des Plantes, on the and repeats these three ideas, ending with a passionate restatement of the arching theme, southern fringes of the city. It was there that Messiaen composed the Theme and and a quick coda which ends the piece with robust and traditional G major chords.