Visions de l’Amen (1943)

1 Amen de la Création (Amen of Creation): Très lent, mystérieux et solennel

2 Amen des étoiles, de la planète à l’anneau (Amen of the stars, of the ringed planet): Modéré, solide et décidé

3 Amen de l’agonie de Jésus (Amen of the agony of Jesus): Très modéré, presque lent

4 Amen du Désir (Amen of Desire): Très lent, avec amour - modére, presque vif

5 Amen des Anges, des Saints, du chant des oiseaux (Amen of the angels, of the saints, of the song of the birds): Très modéré - modére, presque vif, joyeux

6 Amen du Jugement (Amen of Judgement): Très modéré

7 Amen de la Consommation (Amen of the Consummation): Modéré, joyeux

When Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod gave the first performance of the Visions de l’Amen, in Paris in May 1943, no one in the audience could ever have heard anything remotely like it. Those with a memory of the orchestral and organ music Messiaen had written before the war might have been aware of the theological nature of his inspiration and the individuality of a musical language synthesised from a variety of conventional, theoretical and exotic sources. But there was little in those works - or even the Quatuor pour la Fin de Temps, written in a prison camp in Silesia two years earlier - that approached the expressive and structural scope of the Visions de l’Amen. The first in the series of epic masterpieces of his late thirties, including also the Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus and the Turangalîla-Symphonie, it was a direct result of Messiaen’s association with Yvonne Loriod, a pupil who later became his (second) wife.

Yvonne Loriod’s “transcendental virtuosity” allowed Messiaen to introduce a quite new dimension into two-piano music: “I have entrusted to the first piano the rhythmic difficulties, the chord clusters, everything that involves speed charm and sound quality. I have entrusted to the second piano the main melody, the thematic elements, everything that demands emotion and power.” The way he puts this to use in his efforts “to express the wealth of meaning in the word Amen” is clearly illustrated in the first of the seven visions, Amen de la Création, inspired by Genesis: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” The theme of Creation, the recurring main theme of the work, is presented in solemn chords in the second piano, rising gradually in pitch and volume over a long crescendo. If the harmonies of the carillon in the first piano part - based on two rhythmic patterns, one in each hand, expanding and contracting with every repetition - seem alien to the main theme, that apparent anomaly will be resolved later.

Messiaen described the second Vision as a “savage and brutal dance” of “stars, suns and Saturn, the planet with the multicoloured ring.” The scriptural source in this case is the apocryphal Book of Baruch: “The stars shined in their watches, and rejoiced: when he calleth them, they say, Here we be; and so with cheerfulness they shewed light unto him that made them.” The dance theme, apparently primitive in rhythm but highly sophisticated in its changing metres, is introduced in heavy octaves in the bottom register of the second piano. The entry of the first piano is reserved until the beginning of the three joyful “developments” or variations which intervene before the theme returns to the bottom register of the second piano - in its original form but now doubled twice at the octave and brilliantly illuminated by the first piano at the other end of the spectrum.

The Amen de l’agonie de Jésus refers to St Matthew: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt.” A dramatically expressive episode based on two declamatory motifs and two lamentinig melodies, it is constructed in three parts. The second part, a texturally elaborated variant of the first, ends on a crescendo of agony and a silence. The crisis is resolved by a distant echo of the theme of Creation from the first Vision: “Christ’s suffering,” Messiaen explains, “bestows grace and creates the new man.”

Writing about the fourth Vision, the composer insisted that “the word ‘Desire’ has to be understood in its highest spiritual sense.” Well, yes, but anticipations of later, related works make it difficult to avoid associating the Amen du Désir not only with the Regard de l’Esprit de Joie in the Vingt Regards but also with two explicitly erotic movements in the Turangalîla-Symphonie - the Jardin du sommeil d’amour and the Joie du sang des étoiles. His own commentary on this, in turns, sweetly lyrical and passionate inspiration is as follows: “There are two themes of desire. The first, slow-moving and ecstatic, aches for a profound tenderness and already senses the soothing balm of Paradise. The second theme is more vehement; the soul is pulled by a fierce love towards a paroxysm of overwhelming yearning. The two emotions alternate. Throughout the coda the two principal voices appear to melt together until only the harmonious stillness of heaven remains.”

The Amen des Anges, des Saints, du chant des oiseaux derives partly from the Revelation of St John the Divine - “The angels fell before the throne on their faces and worshipped God” - and partly from the composer’s love of bird song, which is reflected in his piano music for the first time here. The outer sections are based on two themes, a kind of plainchant introduced by the two pianos in octaves and a tenderly expressive variant of the Creation theme awarded to the second piano alone. The middle section is a riot of birdsong - nothing exotic, just blackbirds, finches, and warblers but a virtuoso performance even so. After a much elaborated recall of the opening section, the birds make a brief reappearance in the coda.

Much the shortest of the seven Visions, Amen du Jugement, refers, like the similarly dramatic third Vision to St Matthew, the relevant words in this case being “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” It is an undeviatingly monothematic construction based on a theme carried throughout by the second piano and punctuated by lacerating dissonances in the top registers of both instruments and bruising chord clusters at the very bottom of the second keyboard.

“But the path of the just,” according to the Book of Proverbs, “is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” That is the inspiration of the splendid last Vision, Amen de la Consommation. A transfigured version of the opening Amen de la Création, it is constructed in much the same way on repetitions of the theme of Creation on the second piano against a vigorously animated carillon on the first. But now, as the tempo increases and the dynamic level continues to rise from the high base of an ff beginning, the rhythmic contradictions in the carillon are resolved and the harmonies, reflecting “the precious stones of the Apocalypse,” become ever more radiant. The “perfect day” is achieved as the procession reaches its refulgent fffff ending. Two pianos can do no more than that.

Gerald Larner ©2003