L’Ascension

(Quatre Méditations symphoniques)

Majesté du Christ demandant sa gloire à son Père

(Majesty of Christ seeking to be glorified by his Father)

Alléluias sereins d’une âme qui désire le ciel

(Serene Hallelujahs of a Soul desiring Heaven)

Alléluia sur la trompette, alléluis sur la cymbale

(Hallelujah on the Trumpet, Hallelujah on the Cymbal)

Prière du Christ montant vers on Père

(Christ’s prayer rising to his Father)

The four “symphonic meditations” on the Ascension were written as long ago as 1933, only three years after Messiaen had left the composition class of Paul Dukas at the Paris Conservatoire and two years after he had taken up his life-long appointment as organist of La Trinité. Even so, and although several characteristics of his mature style were still to develop – not least his obsessive interest in birdsong – the composer of such monumental works as Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum and La Transfiguration de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ is instantly recognisable in both the sound and the religious inspiration of the piece. As he once said, “I have the good fortune to be a Catholic; I was born a believer…That is the most important aspect of my music…perhaps the only one I shall not be ashamed of in the hour of death.”

The most important technical element in L’Ascension, as in all Messiaen’s music up to the Turangalîla-Symphonie, is melody. In the first movement – reflecting the beginning of the Sacerdotal Prayer “Father, the hour is come: glorify your Son, so that you Son may glorify You” – the chorale-like melodic line is carried throughout by trumpets accompanied by the rest of the brass and less prominent woodwind. The characteristic harmonies are derived from a modal system Messiaen had devised for himself even at this early stage in his career and which he was to retain for the rest of his life.

The second movement – a comment on a prayer from the Ascension Mass, “O God, we believe that your only Son has gone to heaven… let us live there in spirit” – features mainly woodwind. It is based on two main themes, an unharmonised refrain played by all the woodwind instruments in unison and an expressive cor anglais melody decorated by flute arabesques. As the two kinds of material alternate, each one attracts more and more support from strings and brass. The other Alléluia movement is a more animated celebration based on the prophecy of the Ascension in Psalm 46: “The Lord has risen to the sound of the trumpet… Nations, all clap your hands; celebrate God with cries of gladness!” Again trumpets are prominent in introducing the dancing main theme of what is basically a scherzo with, at its very centre, a majestic and much slowed-down version of the trumpet theme played fff by the whole orchestra. The original tempo is resumed for what the coomposer has described as “a sort of dance before the Ark.“

One of Messiaen’s very special characteristics as a composer, in evidence from the beginning to the end of his career, is his ability to extend a constantly developing melodic line at a tempo slower than most other composers would dare sustain for more than a few bars at a time. The last movement of L’Ascension is an inspired example emulating Christ’s aspirations in the Sacerdotal Prayer: “Father, I have revealed your name to mankind… Now I am no longer in the world; but they are in the world, and I come to you.” Scored for strings alone, it is based, as Messiaen describes it, “on a serene phrase that rises, floats ever higher and remains suspended on a simple chord that seems to have no end.”

In 1934, incidentally, Messiaen made an organ arrangement of L’Ascension, completely rewriting the third movement (but without actually improving it, even organists agree) and leaving the other three movements much as they are in the orchestral version.

Gerald Larner ©2012