Messiaen - Oiseaux Exotiques

I am going to do some posts on avant-garde music starting with this one on Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques (exotic birds) from 1955-56.


I have always had an interest in the avant-garde and would like to know more about it. For me blogging is a learning experience.

The curious thing about Olivier Messiaen's bird music is that it's supposed to be made up of the songs of actual birds. Perhaps it is a different experience to hear this if you are familiar with European bird calls. Perhaps not.

Would it enhance the experience to learn which birds these are and then find them in the composition? It would be a little bit like memorizing the leitmotivs for Wagner's Ring, something I have certainly never done. The effect of the leitmotiv is supposed to work whether you have memorized it or not. When I am offered the opportunity not to memorize something, I always accept.

I always find the chaotic effect of Messiaen's music pleasurable.

Messiaen

I went Sunday evening to St. Paul's Cathedral to hear a performance of Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur, a Christmas work for organ played by Huw Williams. When I go to hear Messiaen's organ works, it seems always to be in a large drafty cathedral. I wasn't too cold to make it to the end this time.

Two women priests read the scripture that accompanies each section of the nine movement work. Where the organ is and where the organist sits are all unknown. The sound simply echoes and swirls from all directions, around the dome and through the candle smoke.

This work is very early--1935, only four years after Messiaen was appointed organist at La Sainte-Trinité in Paris. A lot of words have been expended trying to explain the musical style of Messiaen. It isn't counterpoint or harmony, but progresses by extemporizing organist logic from one block of sound to another. Some movements are illustrative--the wise men are heard plodding through the desert.

The final movement, God among us, is unusually powerful. I am a fan.