La Fauvette Passerinette a Messiaen premiere
with birds, landscapes & homages
Peter Hill
La Fauvette Passerinette: a Messiaen premiere
Peter Hill
PRELUDE
BIRDS & LANDSCAPES
with birds, landscapes & homages
1
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Oiseaux tristes
[4:22]
9
piano
Olivier Messiaen
No 2 from Miroirs (1904–5) 2
Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)
La Colombe
[2:19]
10
Henri Dutilleux (1916–2013)
No 1 from Huit Préludes (1928–9) 3
Olivier Messiaen
Le Traquet stapazin
[13:55]
No 4 (Book 2) from Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956–8)
Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas (1935)
D’ombre et de silence
[3:48]
No 1 from Trois Préludes (1973–88)
[1:58]
11
Peter Sculthorpe (1929–2014)
Stars
[1:39]
from Night Pieces (1972–3) 12
ÉTUDE 4
Olivier Messiaen
Île de feu 1
[2:05]
5
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)
Klavierstück VII (1954)
[6:31]
6
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Klavierstück VIII (1954)
[1:59]
Julian Anderson (b. 1967)
Etude No 1
[0:44]
13
George Benjamin (b. 1960)
[6:07]
Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm
[12:20]
Olivier Messiaen
La Fauvette passerinette (1961)*
[11:00]
MEMORIAL 14
Tristan Murail (b. 1947)
Cloches d’adieu, et un sourire… (in memoriam Olivier Messiaen) (1992)
[4:22]
15
Tōru Takemitsu (1930–1996)
Rain Tree Sketch II (1992)
[3:41]
Morceau de lecture à vue (1934)
[1:57]
from Etudes for piano (1995–) 8
River from Dreamlandscapes, Book 2 (1977–85)
No 1 from Quatre Études de rythme (1949–50)
7
Douglas Young (b. 1947)
No 1 from Three Studies for solo piano (1982–5) POSTLUDE 16 Recorded on 23 March & 6 April 2014 in the Reid Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital editing: Paul Baxter 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Piano: Steinway model D, 2012, serial no. 592403
Piano technician: Norman W. Motion Cover photograph: Messiaen transcribing birdsong at Bryce Canyon, Utah (Photo: Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen) Cover & booklet design: John Christ Booklet editor: John Fallas Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk
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Olivier Messiaen Total playing time
* premiere recording
[78:56]
A Messiaen premiere, with birds, landscapes and homages In 2012, while working on Messiaen’s sketches, I came across several pages of what seemed to be finished music, in rapid and decisive handwriting, though very hard to read in Messiaen’s preferred working medium of faint pencil. Looking closely, I realised with growing excitement that this was a draft score of an unknown composition, the music based on birdsong (as was much of Messiaen’s piano music), but birdsong in a new way, with features that are unique in Messiaen’s output. The manuscript appeared to be in an advanced state of completion, and was evidently considered so by Messiaen, who at one point reminds himself to make a fair copy. Another note in the margin dates composition to August 1961 at Petichet, Messiaen’s summer retreat in the French Alps. Until this discovery it has been puzzling that Messiaen composed nothing in 1961. It now seems likely that he used this fallow year for planning a second cycle of piano pieces to follow the earlier Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956–8). La Fauvette passerinette (the bird named in the title is the ‘subalpine warbler’, Sylvia cantillans) shows important differences, however. Where in the Catalogue the harmonic structure of each piece comes from evocations of place – the sea, mountains, trees reflected in a river – Messiaen’s new approach is more abstract, working only with the birdsong itself, apart from a few background colour chords. Since
the birdsong has to create its own harmony, the writing is richer than in the Catalogue, a stepping stone to the birdsong style in La Fauvette des jardins (1970) and to the fabulous refinement of birdsong, through harmony and instrumentation, in the opera Saint François d’Assise (1975–83). Another consequence of creating his structure from birdsong alone is that Messiaen uses the birds to confront or imitate one another, in a kaleidoscopic juggling of their characteristics: near/far, similar/dissimilar, active/passive, fluid/static. The most prominent innovation is the sense of development. The solos for the fauvette passerinette undergo a transformation: they begin in a lyrical style that becomes increasingly hard-edged, developing in a purposeful way that absorbs motifs from the songs of other birds that share its habitat. As a result, the final section is both a virtuoso finale – a thrilling toccata that rampages towards the finish – and a recapitulation that sums up the birdsongs heard in the piece. The main difficulty in realising Messiaen’s sketch was deciphering his handwriting: the manuscript is in spidery pencil, though always meticulous in detail. The outer sections of the piece – which feature the song of the soloist – are entirely finished, down to details of pedalling and even fingering. The middle is more fragmentary and required a certain
amount of detective work. The order of events was determined by following Messiaen’s alphabetically laid-out scheme; and I was able to supply missing dynamics or marks of articulation by consulting Messiaen’s birdsong notebooks which contain the transcriptions on which the music is closely based: these were the only additions I made. The disappearance of La Fauvette passerinette is understandable. By the end of 1961 Messiaen was occupied with plans for an orchestral work for Debussy’s centenary the following year, and soon afterwards three more commissions came his way, for Couleurs de la Cité céleste (1963), Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964) and La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (1965–9). The second ‘catalogue of birds’ was never fulfilled, and La Fauvette passerinette was put away and forgotten. I wanted to give a context to the newlydiscovered piece by recording it alongside other works by Messiaen showing developments in his music up to 1961. These are further interleaved with works by nine other composers – a survey of the musical landscape that Messiaen did so much to inspire with his music and to nurture through his teaching. All the composers have something in common with Messiaen, or owe something to his example. Three were at different times
students in Messiaen’s class (Stockhausen, Tristan Murail and George Benjamin), while Takemitsu studied with him informally. Only very rarely does the music sound like Messiaen, however. As George Benjamin recalled, Messiaen would have been horrified if a student had imitated his style: ‘He wanted to guide you to find your own voice and to strengthen your own gifts. In fact he would only be stylistically censorious (although that is too strong a word) if he saw you were overinfluenced by his musical world.’ I met the same generosity when I worked with Messiaen in Paris in the late 1980s while I was preparing my recording of his piano music. Like George Benjamin I found him kindly and encouraging, though all mildness disappeared when it came to his own music, as I recorded in my diary after our first meeting: Altogether an absolutely passionate (not ‘abstract’) musician: everything has to be 100 per cent, and really be the birds, places, etc.
Messiaen set the highest standards, but he encouraged my own convictions about his music, rarely imposing his own. The revelations came in the details. It was inspiring just to hear him play a few chords on the piano, scrutinising the effect of altering the balance to change the colour – literally so for Messiaen, who ‘saw’ and experienced harmonies as colours.