Orchestra 2001 plays Messiaen

Orchestra 2001 marked Olivier Messiaen's 100th birthday with a special free concert that included one of the 20th century's greatest works— Messiaen's Visions de L'Amen for two pianos. In his remarks in the middle of the program, composer Gerald Levinson noted that dozens of Messiaen concerts were being held all over the world on December 10th. Messiaen's works are receiving thousands of performances during the 2008-09 season.

I've become familiar with Messiaen's work during the last 20 years largely through Orchestra 2001's efforts. The Philadelphia Orchestra has presented two performances of his massive Turangalila symphony, and the Curtis student series often schedules his best-known chamber work, the Quartet for the End of Time. But Orchestra 2001 is the only local organization that has consistently included Messiaen's music in its programs and exposed Philadelphia audiences to the full range of his contribution.

Messiaen was still alive when Orchestra 2001 played its first concert in 1988, and its performances of his work have been illuminated by personal relationships with the composer and his second wife, pianist Yvonne Loriod.

Beyond mere art: thoughts and feelings

Messiaen's work has reached its current eminence because it is about something. Like the greatest poems, it combines a high level of inventive artistry with important thoughts and feelings.

When we read a line like Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments, we respond to the grace of the language and the grace of the thought it expresses. Both elements are equally important. Messiaen wrote innovative music that can stand on its own just as music, but he used it to express a worldview that was shaped by some of the deepest currents of our time.

Messiaen happened to be a Roman Catholic, and Catholic symbolism and preoccupations run through his work. But his music transcends his specific religious beliefs. Buddhists and total secularists (like me) can respond to the cosmic vision embodied in his work. Messiaen even incorporated Buddhist instruments and musical forms.

Two pianos, going full blast

Visions de L'Amen is a powerful, unforgettable expression of that mystical cosmic Catholicism. It opens with an "Amen of creation" that starts with a carillon sounding over the pulse of creation, continues with a heavy dance of the planets in the "Amen of the stars, of the ringed planet," brings in the chants of the birds (a Messiaen trademark) in the fifth section, and concludes, in the "Amen of the final consummation," with long, high pitched pealing over the crash of the creation theme and a finale that has both pianos going full blast with different themes.

Visions de L'Amen is also an example of Messiaen's ability to combine cosmic concerns with profound personal feelings. The fourth section is called, "The Amen of Desire," and the piece was written for his wife, who originally played the first piano, with Messiaen himself playing the second.

Two romantic marriages

Messiaen's first wife, violinist Clare Delbos, died prematurely, and both of his marriages seem to have been deeply romantic. The 1933 Fantasie for Violin and Piano that opened the program captured personal emotions that were just as deep as the composer's religious feelings. It received a moving reading from Barbara Govatos and Marcantonio Barone, with Barone producing a particularly controlled performance of a part that ran the gamut from big dramatic bangs to light background music during the passages that placed the violin in the foreground.

The program ended with a piece that plays like a powerful religious ritual, but it began with the reenactment of a touching romantic interlude.