from Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus

VII Regard de la Croix: bien modéré

XIII Noël: trés vif, joyeux

XVII Regard du silence: très modéré

VI Par Lui tout a été fait: modéré, presque vif

Whether you like it or not - and not everyone shares his religious sentiments or his interest in birdsong - Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus is one of the great monuments of 20th-century piano music, alongside works of the stature of Albéniz’s Iberia and Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke. The complete cycle lasts more than two hours and is a formidable technical challenge in every keyboard and interpretative sense. Written in what was surely the most inspired period of Messiaen’s career, directly between Quatuor pour la fin du temps and the Turangalîla Symphony, it was first performed by its dedicatee, Yvonne Loriod, in Paris in 1945.

The work owes its title (which is perhaps best translated as “Twenty Ways of Looking at the Infant Jesus”) to Maurice Toesca’s Les Douze Regards which, together with Dom Columbia Marmion’s Christ and His Mysteries, was a major influence - not to mention Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint John of the Cross, Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux, the Gospels, and the Roman Missal. Even so, Messiaen’s contemplations from twenty different, mystic points of view are very personal, as his commentaries on them confirm. His vision of Creation, the inspiration of the third of today’s pieces, Par Lui tout a été fait, he describes as “…galaxies, photons, spirals in contrary motion, inverted flashes of lightning; by ‘him’ (the Word) everything has been made… creation reveals to us the luminous shadow of his Voice.”

The Regard de la Croix (the Cross) is very much less complicated, both musically and theologically, than Par Lui tout a été fait. It is dominated by one of the main cyclic themes of the work, the “Theme of the Star and the Cross,“ which is articulated in wide-spaced slow-moving double octaves, each note sustained by the pedal to allow both hands to insert a tolling ostinato of painful dissonances between the parallel lines. The texture remains the same until the brief crescendo of unadorned double octaves at the end.

In Regard du Silence Messiaen represents silence - always a problem for a composer - by a series of very quiet “impalpable” chords negated by one hand contradicting the other both modally and rhythmically. “Silence from the crib,” according to the commentary, “reveals musics and colours which are the mysteries of Jesus Christ” - which more or less explains the suddenly loud entry of another of the main themes of the work, the “Theme of Chords,” and the subsequent delicately scored arpeggios and snatches of bird song. This contemplation of Jesus in the manger ends with a remarkable coda of pianissimo chords alternating between left and right hands at the top end of the keyboard and described by Messiaen as “confetti, light precious stones, jostling reflections.”

The last of the twenty pieces to be written, Par Lui tout a été fait (By Him everything was Made) is also one of the longest and one of the most impressive. Although, according to Messiaen, it is a fugue, it is scarcely recognisable as one, mainly because the fugue subject rarely appears in the form in which it is introduced, low in the left hand, in the opening bars. The right hand enters almost immediately with the counter-subject followed by a fortissimo variant of the subject. So the fugue goes on, incorporating rhythmic and melodic canons, the “Theme of Chords,” the one and only recall of the subject in its original form and a backwards version of the whole piece so far. Unstoppable though the juggernaut toccata seems to be, it is eventually halted after a pronounced rallentando by the most important of the cyclic themes, the “Theme of God” in the form of heavily emphatic chords each followed by Liszt-like rumbles in the bass. The fugue resumes, now featuring not only the “Theme of God” but also the “Theme of Love,” which latter the left hand repeats no fewer than twenty times in a row in the frenetic coda.

VII Regard de la Croix: bien modéré

XIII Noël: très vif, joyeux - trés modéré - très vif

XVII Regard du silence: très modéré

VI Par Lui tout a été fait: modéré, presque vif

What Messiaen might have called his “harmonies poétiques et réligieuses” are very much more personal and more specific in their inspiration than Liszt’s. But whether you are in sympathy with his sentiments or not, the Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus must be counted as one of the great monuments of 20th-century piano music, alongside works of the stature of Albéniz’s Iberia and Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke. The complete cycle lasts more than two hours and is a formidable technical challenge in every keyboard and interpretative respect. Written in what was surely the most inspired period of Messiaen’s career, directly between Quatuor pour la fin du temps and the Turangalîla Symphony, it was first performed by its dedicatee, Yvonne Loriod, in Paris in 1945.

The work owes its title (which is perhaps best translated as “Twenty Ways of Looking at the Infant Jesus”) to Maurice Toesca’s Les Douze Regards which, together with Dom Columbia Marmion’s Christ and His Mysteries, was a major influence - not to mention Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint John of the Cross, Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux, the Gospels, and the Roman Missal. Even so, Messiaen’s contemplations from twenty different, mystic points of view are entirely peculiar to his way of thinking, as his commentaries on them confirm. His vision of Creation, the inspiration of the third of today’s pieces, Par Lui tout a été fait, he describes as “…galaxies, photons, spirals in contrary motion, inverted flashes of lightning; by ‘him’ (the Word) everything has been made… creation reveals to us the luminous shadow of his Voice.”

The Regard de la Croix (the Cross) is very much less complicated, both musically and theologically, than Par Lui tout a été fait. It is dominated by one of the main cyclic themes of the work, the “Theme of the Star and the Cross,“ which is articulated in wide-spaced slow-moving double octaves, each note sustained by the pedal to allow both hands to insert a tolling ostinato of suffering dissonances between the parallel lines. The texture remains the same until the brief crescendo of unadorned double octaves at the end. Noël - “Christmas bells say with us the sweet names of Jesus, Mary, Joseph” - is a contrastingly joyful carillon, of brilliant tintinnabulations at one end of the keyboard and shuddering thuds at the other, enshrining at its centre an intimate, sweetly harmonised family scene at the crib.

In Regard du Silence Messiaen represents silence - always a problem for a composer - by a series of very quiet “impalpable” chords negated by one hand contradicting the other both modally and rhythmically. “Silence from the crib,” according to the commentary, “reveals musics and colours which are the mysteries of Jesus Christ” - which more or less explains the suddenly loud entry of another of the main themes of the work, the “Theme of Chords,” and the subsequent delicately scored arpeggios and snatches of bird song. This contemplation of Jesus in the manger ends with a remarkable coda of pianissimo chords alternating between left and right hands at the top end of the keyboard and described by Messiaen as “confetti, light precious stones, jostling reflections.”

The last of the twenty pieces to be written, Par Lui tout a été fait (By Him everything was Made) is also one of the longest and one of the most impressive. Although, according to Messiaen, it is a fugue, it is scarcely recognisable as one, mainly because the fugue subject rarely appears in the form in which it is introduced, low in the left hand, in the opening bars. The right hand enters almost immediately with the counter-subject followed by a fortissimo variant of the subject. So the fugue goes on, incorporating rhythmic and melodic canons, the “Theme of Chords,” the one and only recall of the subject in its original form and a backwards version of the whole piece so far. Unstoppable though this juggernaut toccata seems to be, it is eventually halted after a pronounced rallentando by the most important of the cyclic themes, the “Theme of God” in the form of heavily emphatic chords each followed by Liszt-like rumbles in the bass. The fugue resumes, now featuring not only the “Theme of God” but also the “Theme of Love,” which latter the left hand repeats no fewer than twenty times in a row in the frenetic coda.

XVII Regard du silence: très modéré

XII La parole toute-puissante: un peu vif

XI Première communion de la Vierge: très lent

César Franck and Olivier Messiaen had much in common, not least the inspiration they found in the Catholic faith and their extraordinary fidelity as organists to their respective churches in Paris: Franck retained his post at Sainte Clotilde for no fewer than thirty years, Messiaen his at La Trinité for more than forty. On the other hand, although the organist in Franck all to often intrudes on the pianist in him - not least in the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue - Messiaen wrote for the piano as knowingly and as imaginatively as any of his contemporaries. Obviously, as the successor to Fauré, Debussy and Ravel, Messiaen had the historical advantage: Franck had no such national tradition to inform his piano style. Less obviously, Messiaen also had the advantage of a long-term association with one of the leading pianists of her generation, Yvonne Loriod, whom he married in 1962 but whose influence on his music goes back not far short of twenty years before that.

First performed by Yvonne Loriod in Paris in 1945, the Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus was written in what was surely the most inspired period of Messiaen’s career, directly between Quatuor pour la fin du temps and the Turangalîla Symphony. It is one of his (in a very real sense) visionary masterpieces, a series of contemplations of the baby Jesus from different mystical points of view - as seen by the Father, the Virgin, the Cross, the Angels… It owes its title (which is perhaps best translated as “Twenty Ways of Looking at the Infant Jesus”) to Maurice Toesca’s Les Douze Regards which, together with Dom Columbia Marmion’s Christ and His Mysteries, was a major influence - not to mention Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint John of the Cross, Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux, the Gospels, and the Roman Missal. Even so, Messiaen’s contemplations are very personal, as his (not always easily penetrable) commentaries on them confirm: “Silence held in the hand, inverted rainbow,” he writes in his observations on the first piece in today’s selection, Regard du silence. “Every silence from the crib reveals musics and colours that are the mystery of Jesus Christ.”

Silence - always a problem for a composer - is symbolized here by a series of very quiet “impalpable” chords negated by one hand contradicting the other both modally and rhythmically. The suddenly loud entry of one of the main themes of the Vingt Regards, the “Theme of Chords,” and the subsequent delicately scored arpeggios and snatches of bird song no doubt represent the “musics and colours” released by the silence from the crib. Closing not in the symbolized “silence” in which it began but in real silence, the piece dies away in a long-sustained dissonance at the end of a remarkable coda of pianissimo chords - “confetti, light precious stones, jostling reflections” - alternating in near silence between left and right hands at the top end of the keyboard.

The power of the Word is reflected in the comparatively short La Parole toute-puissante by an implacably thunderous fortissimo reverberating mainly in the lower half of the keyboard. In a texture consisting of a three-part theme proclaimed in octaves over a percussive ostinato of chord clusters sustained at the very bottom of the range - Messiaen had a tam-tam coloured by drum rolls in mind - harmony is virtually excluded.

The composer describes Première communion de la Vierge (First Communion of the Virgin) as “a picture in which the Virgin is represented kneeling, bending forwards - a bright halo hovers over her womb. With closed eyes, she worships the fruit hidden within her. This happens between the Annunciation and Nativity: it is the first and the greatest of all communions… After the Annunciation, Mary worships Jesus within her… my God, my son, my Magnificat! - my love spoken without words…”

The piece is based on a variant of one of the principal musical images of the work, the “Theme of God.” In the très lent opening section it is manifested as a sequence of four chords quietly repeated in the left hand and overlaid in the right hand by a variety of decorative but also meaningful figurations, including the Virgin’s tender “internal embrace” of her unborn child and a characteristic display of bird song at one point. The Virgin’s “Magnificat” in the middle section is presented as a vigorous dance with a compressed and syncopated variant of the Theme of God again in the left hand set against “panting” expressions of physical exhilaration in the right. It leads to a dramatic litany of chords shared by the two hands, an extraordinary passage of quietly drummed low Fs representing the beating of the child’s heart and a brief recall of the opening très lent material, the Theme of God dying away at the end.

XVIII Regard de l’Onction terrible: modéré

XIV Regard des Anges: très vif - modéré

XV Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus: très lent, calme - modéré

X Regard de l’Esprit de joie: presque vif - modéré

Whether you like it or not - and you might well share neither his religious sentiments nor his interest birdsong - Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus is one of the great monuments of 20th-century piano music, alongside works like Albéniz’s Iberia and Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke. The complete cycle lasts more than two hours and is a formidable technical challenge in every keyboard and interpretative sense. Written in what was surely the most inspired period of Messiaen’s career, directly between Quatuor pour la fin du temps and the Turangalîla Symphony, it was first performed by its dedicatee, Yvonne Loriod, in Paris in 1945.

The work owes its title (which is perhaps best translated as “Twenty Ways of Looking at the Infant Jesus”) to Maurice Toesca’s Les Douze Regards, which was a major source of inspiration to the composer along with Dom Columbia Marmion’s Christ and His Mysteries - not to mention Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint John of the Cross, Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux, the Gospels, the Roman Missal…. Even so, Messiaen’s contemplations from twenty different, mystic points of view are very personal, as his commentaries on them confirm. Of the Regard de l’Onction terrible, for example, he says he was influenced “by an old tapestry of the Word of God struggling under the features of a mounted Christ. One sees only his two hands holding a sword that he brandishes amid flashes of lightning.” But before he approaches the picturesque element of the piece, he offers an extraordinary introduction where the two hands are set in contrary motion not only in the usual melodic sense but also rhythmically: the rhythmic values of the notes in the right hand get progressively longer by a quaver at a time while those in the left hand get progressively shorter. The central section of what turns out to be a palindromic construction sets a thunderous chorale against brilliant lightning flashes of keyboard bravura. The coda puts the contrary-motion introduction in reverse.

There is another interesting technical innovation in Regard des Anges, a “rhythmic canon” in three monotone voices (each one harmonised in parallel tritones, making them sound dangerously like Danse macabre). This is one component of the composite material, including also an evocation of stentorian trombones low in the left hand, that Messiaen presents three times in what he calls the first three “strophes” of the piece. In the fourth strophe the angels abandon their trombones and transform themselves into birds, the elaborately articulated song of which can be heard to combine with the rhythmic canon. The fifth strophe, introduced by a return of the trombone theme, expresses in a climactic crescendo “the growing stupefaction of the angels that God allied himself not to them but to the human race.”

“At each communion,” Messiaen says in his commentary on Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus, “the infant Jesus sleeps with us by the door; then he opens it onto the garden and runs out in the full light to embrace us.” The piece - inspired by an engraving of the infant Jesus running arms outstretched to embrace Sainte Thérèse - is based on one of the main themes of the cycle, “the theme of God.” It is presented here as a lullaby with a recurrent rocking motif in the left hand. After a variation in which the theme is overlaid by a filigree runs and trills of Lisztian delicacy, the scene changes to the garden, where it is combined with birdsong. The climax of the piece, following a long crescendo as Jesus runs with arms outstretched, is the kiss, the ecstatic melody in triadic chords high in the right hand accompanied by arpeggios in the left. It is not, however, the end of the piece, even though it sounds like it: a tranquil coda, identified as “the shadow of the kiss,” is still to come.

One of the most impressive of the Vingt Regards is the tenth, Regard de l’Esprit de joie. “I have always been struck by the fact that God is happy,” Messiaen wrote, “and that this ineffable and continuing joy also inhabits the soul of Christ. A joy which for me is a rapture, an intoxication, in the maddest sense of the word.” It begins at the bottom end of the keyboard with what he describes as an “oriental dance” in mainly staccato articulation, its rumbling rhythms interrupted at unpredictable intervals by violent chords in both hands. The main theme - the “theme of joy” rising inexorably up a gapped scale - makes its first entry in the left hand as the tempo slows down from presque vif to modéré on an allusion to the “theme of God.”

The composer’s “intoxication” amid all this joy is expressed by the sound of four hunting horns in the left hand under a clattering ostinato in the right. After an extensive development of the hunting calls - anticipating the no less rapturous Joie du sang des étoiles in Turangalîla - the “theme of joy” returns fff in refulgent polytonal harmonies amid more allusions to the “theme of God.” The oriental dance is resumed, but now with the hands at opposite ends of the keyboard, and the “theme of joy” makes one last, emphatically climactic ffff appearance before a brief coda and a loud echo of the hunting horns.

Gerald Larner ©2003