Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum

1 Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice!

2 Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death hath no more

dominion over him

3 The hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God

4 It is raised in glory – a new name written – when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy

5 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude

To find an equivalent to Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem moruorum you have to look as far back in history as Berlioz’s Symphonie funèbre et triomphale. That monumental work was commissioned by the French government to commemorate the heroic victims of the 1830 Revolution at a ceremony in the Place de la Bastille in 1840. Messiaen’s scarcely less monumental work – also scored for wind and percussion but without chorus – was commissioned by Charles de Gaulle’s Minister of culture, André Malraux, to honour the dead of two World Wars at a ceremony in Chartres Cathedral. Although Messiaen didn’t have to worry about disposing his forces in such a way that they could be heard out of doors as Berlioz did, he nevertheless made sure that the score would be suitable not only for ‘large spaces like churches and cathedrals’ but also for ‘the open air or even,’ he added from his characteristically lofty point of view, ‘high mountains.’

Another precedent, though musically very different and not in the same tradition, is Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony. In thinking about the Malraux commission Messiaen had become uneasy about the memorial aspect and decided to concentrate instead on celebrating the concept of resurrection. He took as his title the relevant phrase from the Nicene Creed – “And I await the resurrection of the dead” – and chose five texts on resurrection from various biblical sources, each one of which would be the spiritual basis of one of the five movements.

A note in the score offers more illumination on the nature of the work, including its often slow-moving massivity: ‘At the time I was writing it I was particularly attached to such simple, powerful images as the Mexican step-pyramids, the temples and statuary of ancient Egypt, romanesque or gothic churches… I was re-reading St Thomas Aquinas’s “Resurrection” and his “World of the Resurrected”… I was working in the French Alps, gazing on those imposing landscapes that are my true homeland.’

Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice!

In the first movement the ‘depths’ are represented by ponderous low wind (including bass saxhorn) and three tam-tams, the ‘cry’ by loud dissonances from all the woodwind and brass with cencerros (Mexican bells), tubular bells, six gongs and the three tam-tams.

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death hath no more

dominion over him

The second movement is more complicated both theologically and musically. But it too contrasts two sorts of material. The first is based on the shrill flurry of notes uttered by woodwind in the opening bars, then sustained as a chord, then extended into a slow exchange of melodic phrases between solo oboe, clarinet, flute and cor anglais. The other is a combination of percussion sounds (including a Hindu rhythm said to represent ‘the death of death’) with a wind chorus dominated by a trumpet melody ‘that seems to spring from the sounds around it, just as the risen Christ in Matthias Grünewald’s painting seems to take flight in a rainbow formed by his own light.’ The solo woodwind conversation is heard again, this time with comments from three gongs, before a recall of the percussion-wind combination and a final allusion to the woodwind material.

3 The hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God

Up to this point in the work there has been no sign of the birdsong which is such a prominent feature of Messiaen’s music of this period. In the third movement, however, it is there from the start in a woodwind approximation to the song of the uirapuru of Amazonia – a bird heard only, according to legend, at the moment of death. The other symbols of “the voice of the Son of God” are four notes permutated on tubular bells and a long crescendo of gongs and tam-tams rising in volume to an extraordinary fffff extreme.

It is raised in glory – a new name written – when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy

The longest of the five movements is punctuated by recurrences at varying volums of three tam-tam strokes representing, the composer says, ‘the Trinity, the solemn moment of resurrection and the distant melody of the stars.’ The percussion ensemble following the initial tam-tam pronouncement introduces an Easter plainchant and then, as the percussion continues, a solo trumpet joins the full woodwind ensemble in a brilliant Alleluia. A third element, which enters on woodwind after the second tam-tam intervention, is a simulation of the song of the Calandra lark symbolising joy and ‘the gift of agility.’ After the fifth and loudest intervention of the tam-tams, the Easter plainchant, the Alleluia and the Calandra lark are all combined with the theme of the first movement (now on trombones) in a formidable and magnificently sustained climax.

And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude

The last movement reflects the near-monolithic construction of the first.

Resounding throughout with a measured ostinato on the gongs, it is presented as a vast chorus of praise finally involving the whole ensemble in what Messiaen describes as an “enormous, unanimous, and simple fortissimo.”

Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum was first performed privately in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris in May 1965 – “a marvellous performance,” Messiaen recalled, “with the reflections of the sun in the blue and the red of the windows, and all that resonance” – and fulfilled its official function on what amounted to a state occasion in Chartres Cathedral a month later.

Gerald Larner © 2009