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Messiaen

Posted by dieter barkhoff on January 20, 2022, 8:50 am

I enjoyed very much Simon Thompson's review of the Nagano/Aimard Messiaen release on Bavarian Classics. I've always tried to co-relate the enthusiasm of his proselytizers with my reaction to his music. I admit the Catholic stuff is - as a very much lapsed Catholic - double dutch to me and I've found that apart from the famous Quartet, there is nothing I feel I can get my teeth into. Dutilleux, for example, makes sense to me. Messiaen, I guess simply adds to my lack of interest in many other M's: Mendelssohn, Milhaud, Myaskovsky, Medtner, and Mahler's 8th.
Does anyone else share my reception to Messiaen?

Re: Messiaen

Posted by John F on January 21, 2022, 7:01 am, in reply to "Messiaen"

I have some sympathy with Dieter about the inherent "Catholic Stuff" in Messiaen's music. That said, there are many works which are "secular" or only make "oblique" references to Christianity. The Preludes for piano, the massive Catalogue d'oiseaux, Des Canyons aux étoiles..., the Turangalila Symphony, many of the songs etc.
I do enjoy his "religious" works, but oftentimes when listening I try to evacuate the theological underpinning, and just enjoy the music "absolutely." Perhaps noting emotion such as joy, despair, sadness etc.
I do the same with Richard Strauss's tone poems. Trying to follow the programme of the Alpine Symphony with its 22 descriptive sections bores me, but I love the aspirational sound of the music.
It may be naïve, but it allows me to listen to many masterpieces by lots of composers, that I would be put off simply because of the titles, and the programmatic background that leaves me cold.

John F

Re: Messiaen

Posted by Mikeh on January 21, 2022, 7:45 am, in reply to "Messiaen"

Hi Dieter

A belated Happy New Year to you, despite the cricket !

I do rather agree with you, I love the Quartet but, frankly get a bit bored by other works. Take the Turangalila.- I love it at first then my interest wanes and about half-way through I give up. Other orchestral works seem just (generally pleasant) noise with little logic. I am no pianist, but I do like the Vingt Regards but, shame on me, as background !
Mea culpa !
-

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Re: Messiaen

Posted by Ralph Moore on January 21, 2022, 10:32 am, in reply to "Re: Messiaen"

As the guilty party responsible for the "Alpensinfonie" survey I am baffled by John F's method of listening to it as "absolute" music while banishing fron his mind its descriptive, programmatic element, as I find Strauss' depiction to be so vivid and specific that I cannot possibly prevent myself from synaesthetically conjuring up sounds, pictures and sensations as I listen.

On the other hand, I have no difficulty exiling Messiaen from my musical landscape altogether....

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Re: Messiaen

Posted by John F on January 21, 2022, 5:28 pm, in reply to "Re: Messiaen"

In reply to Ralph,
I guess it is just a lack of musical sophistication on my behalf. Programme music tends to leave me cold. If I can imagine it as "impressionistic" good and well, but not a line by line description of a text or a step by step exploration of a mountain!
It is like film music. I can enjoy a film score even if the subject matter of the flick repels me! I just forget the story and enjoy the sounds...
John F

Re: Messiaen

Posted by Ralph Moore on January 21, 2022, 5:41 pm, in reply to "Re: Messiaen"

In truth, John, I think it is I who am the literalist lacking sophistication. Different folks, different strokes...

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Re: Messiaen

Posted by dieter barkhoff on January 22, 2022, 12:50 am, in reply to "Re: Messiaen"

I've been enjoying a conversation with a 'Brother' who became a Priest, who taught me and was my cricket coach in the mid to later 1960s. He was/is a gentle man, unlike many of his ilk. I had been sending him YouTube links to the magnificent Bachstiftung series of Bach Cantatas presided over by Rudolf Lutz- I urgently recommend these performances stretching back to 2006 and still evolving - and he is as struck by the text - The Word - as he calls it as the music. Ironically, as I asked my wife to sit with me to watch the glorious duet from Cantata 66, I had mentioned to her that I wish they hadn't flashed the sub-titles of the text on the screen. I'm very much the same with Opera, using some dialogue from Martinu's Passion of Christ to justify my ignorance of texts - let's face it, the plots of most operas are simply very silly Mills and Boon-like travesties of ART - and the dialogue - Martinu's opera is of course performed in its English translation - goes like this:
Would you like onions?
Cometh the reply: No, I don't like onions.
I'm also very much a 'pure musica' man in relation to Proramme Music. It's probably why I rate Shostakovich Symphonies 7, 11 and 12s so lowly, but then again, there's Babi Yar..
And it's much the same with Taras Bulba, the Alpine Symphony, both works I love, I was going to say Liszt and his Tone Poems...but Liszt is someone I listen to very little and in my pantheon of way over-rated composers he is way, way up there.

Regards and best wishes for the coming year to all.
Mister Barkhoff
In reply to Ralph,
I guess it is just a lack of musical sophistication on my behalf. Programme music tends to leave me cold. If I can imagine it as "impressionistic" good and well, but not a line by line description of a text or a step by step exploration of a mountain!
It is like film music. I can enjoy a film score even if the subject matter of the flick repels me! I just forget the story and enjoy the sounds...
John F

Re: Messiaen

Posted by John Drayton on February 12, 2022, 12:43 am, in reply to "Messiaen"

I am frustrated by Messiaen, possibly for the opposite reason. As a practising Catholic I relate very much to the theological under-pinnings, but can't hear anything at all in the music with which it resonates. My fault, I'm sure - but as we say in Australia, "Yeah, but nah."

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Re: Messiaen

Posted by dieter barkhoff on February 12, 2022, 9:13 am, in reply to "Re: Messiaen"

Interesting juxtaposition: a practicing Catholic who can't hear it's resonance in Messiaen, a non-practicing Catlick - as my German father called us, he was Lutheran, and his English came from the Brits at a POW camp in Port Said - is put off by its Liturgical associations. I remade contact just before Christmas with a Bro who became a Priest, a very fine human being, a world-famous expert on the Johannine Gospel and we have corresponded about his faith and my lack of it. It began when I sent him links to those fabulous You Tube Bach Cantatas conducted by Rudolf Lutz, Bachstiftung- please follow up- and he relates most to the co-relation of the Liturgical texts to the music, I don't care if I don't know what the hell they're singing about, because it's basically mumbo jumbo to me. But that's another story. That's life, I guess, an amalgam of stories and songs. I live in Scomoland as well, a very scary place indeed.

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