Messiaen

Sir George Benjamin: A Duet and a Dream

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

A Duet and a Dream
Philharmonia Orchestra & Voices, Sir George Benjamin
Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano, James Hall counter-tenor
Royal Festival Hall, 5 March 2020

Knussen: Choral
Messiaen: Le merle bleu (The blue rock thrush) from Catalogue d’oiseaux
Benjamin: Duet for piano & orchestra
Benjamin: Dream of the Song
Janáček: Sinfonietta

A nicely balanced programme of music dating from 1926 to 2015 saw Sir George Benjamin conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra in two of his own pieces, together with one of the piano works of his teacher, Messiaen, the 1972 Choral by the influential composer Oliver Knussen with Janáček’s rousing Sinfonietta as a finale. The opening Choral was composed for wind, percussion and double basses, the number 4 appearing to be an underlying thread in the instrumentation. As well as four double basses, there were similar quartets of slithering trombones, fluttering flutes, saxophones, oboes, bassoons and percussionists. It was composed Knussen’s vision of “several funeral procession converging into a point in the distance”, the slow pulse and evolving instrumental colour reinforcing this image. Continue reading →

Prom 13. Messiaen: Des canyons aux étoiles

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Olivier Messiaen: Des canyons aux étoiles
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo
Nicolas Hodges, Martin Owen, David Hockings, Alex Neal
Royal Albert Hall, 28 July 2019

Olivier Messiaen wrote Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars) between 1971/4 as a commission celebrating the bicentenary of the US Declaration of Independence. He was strongly influenced by a visit to Utah, finding inspiration in the birds and the extraordinary landscapes. Each of the three parts of the 12-movement work concludes with a powerful movement dedicated to the dramatic geological sites of Utah, Bryce Canyon and the nearby Cedar Breaks and Zion Park. Messiaen had sound-colour synaesthesia and the “red, orange, violet” of the sandstone hoodoos of Bryce Canyon led to his focussing the extended 7th movement Bryce Canyon et les rochers rouge-orange” (Bryce Canyon and the red-orange rocks) in his own key of third-mode E major, a mode that he saw as a bright red-orange colour. He contrasts this image with the blue of the Steller’s Jay, one of many birds that feature throughout the piece from places as far afield as Australia, Hawaii. and the Sahara. The monumental final few bars of this movement are the aural climax of the entire piece.

Brice CanyonBryce Canyon © ABW Continue reading →

Prom 38: Foulds’ Mantras & Messiaen’s Turangalîla

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Prom 38: Foulds’ Mantras & Messiaen’s Turangalîla
BBC Philharmonic, Juanko Mena
Royal Albert Hall, 13 August 2015

In an inspired bit of programming, Messiaen’s enormous hymn to eroticism and sexual desire was coupled (so to speak) with a very rare performance of John Foulds’ Three Mantras, composed between 1919 and 1930 and all that survives of his monumental ‘Sanskrit opera’ Avatara.  

John Foulds (1880-1939) is something of a local lad for the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic. He played cello for the Halle aged 20, and later became known as a composer of light music. But behind this populist façade lay some fascinating musical ideas, well ahead of his time. Marriage to a leading authority on Indian music led to an interest in Indian mysticism and esoteric thought, very much in vogue at the time. After time in London and Paris, he moved to India, founding a symphony orchestra in Delhi. His Three Mantras were composed in Paris as preludes to the three acts of the opera Avatara. He destroyed all except these three pieces. Continue reading →