Years ago, I went to see the San Francisco Opera's production of Messiaen's St Francois d'Assise - - - twice! Over five hours long, it has stretches of tedious, almost maddeningly incomprehensible enactments of mystical experiences that are so personal, so specific, so rarefied that they feel as if they are meant to actually push you (the listener) away. Then the angel arrives. It is some of the most unanticipatedly moving, beautiful music I’d ever heard. I remember hearing the Angel Music, and by the end of the aria, I was quietly weeping, as were the people around me. I don't believe in angels. If I did, I would imagine them as a point of transmission between us mere mortals and the divine creatures beyond. They could talk to us, traveling from a realm we cannot get to, and they could also talk to the inhabitants of that realm on our behalf. In my piece, the violin and the piano are either us (here) or them (there). You are free to decide which. The two instruments play near each other, but never together.
