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4. Olivier Messiaen: Catalogue d’Oiseaux

Olivier Messiaen was not only an influential composer of the 20th century, but also he was a passionate ornithologist. He was fascinated by the world of birds, and he studied and incorporated birdsong into his compositions from the 1950’s. Birdsong required an intricate system of musical notation, so Messiaen used very complex rhytms and tonal systems, from which the latter is rather difficult to be replicated on the piano because of its fixed tuning. Catalogue d’Oiseaux (Catalogue of Birds) was written between 1956 and 1958, and premiered by his second wife, Yvonne Loriod.

The composer said:

’’Each piece is written in honor of a French province. It bears the title of the bird-type of the chosen region. It is not alone: its habitat neighbors surround it and also sing (...)-its landscape, the hours of the day and night that change the landscape, are also present, with their colors, their temperatures, the magic of their perfumes.’’

The first book contains three pieces.

Cochard des Alpes (Alpine cough)

Le Loriot (Eurasian golden oriole)

Le Merle Bleu (Blue rock thrush)

From this three birds, the Alpine cough lives in the Northern region of France, the Eurasian golden oriole is present in most parts of the country, and the blue rock thrush lives in the South of France, near the Mediterranean Sea. I decided to write in detail about the second piece.

The Eurasian golden oriole is a passeringe bird which spends the summer in Europe and Western Asia, and migrates to Africa for the winter.

From the 3 pieces Le Loriot is the longest, and, in my opinion both musically and technically the most demanding one. It requires virtuosic abilities to create the sounds that Messiaen imagined. I find it very interesting that how the song of the golden oriole is very close to the music which humans make, so it is pleasant to the human ear, and for this reason, the composer uses tonal systems which are closer to the tonalities used before the 20th century. It can not be ignored either that the name of Yvonne Loriod rhymes with the French name of the golden oriole. For this reason, obviously, I chose her recording of this piece.

@une-barque-sur-l-ocean - Baki-Szmaler Noémi, guest editor

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1. Claude Debussy: Poissons d’Or When we talk about music, it is impossible to not to mention the name of Claude Debussy, whose name has fused with the term ’’impressionism’’. He had the talent to create atmospheres which capture the essence of a natural scene. This is why the chosen piece for my first post this week is his piece called Poissons d’or (Goldfish), the final movement of his second set of Images, written in 1907.  Poissons d’or is joyous, bright music, with toccata-like pianistic elements. It reminds me of Movement from the first book of Images, Toccata from his suite Pour le piano, or L’Isle joyouse (The Happy Island).  Debussy’s source of inspiration could have been Chinese or Japanese illustrations of goldfish, since this kind of art was fashionable during the beginning of the 20th century, however, he could have seen real goldfish swimming in a pond. He dedicated this movement to Ricardo Vines, who was an accomplished pianist of those times.

The piece was written in F sharp major, a very bright key. To show off as many colours and textures as possible, the tonality changes several times throughout the piece, usually to E flat major or C major.

In the introduction, we can hear an F#9 chord with an augmented 9th, creating an ambiguous sense of tonality and a brighter sound. From these tremolos the music is born: what I would like to emphasize instead of a detailed analysis of the piece are the compositional techniques that Debussy uses to depict the goldfish.

The water is present throughout the piece: sometimes we can hear water flowing or the movment of the waves as tremoloos, arpeggios, long trills, or apoggiaturas and fast jumps on staccato notes as jingling sprinklets of water. In this imaginary river, or pond, these fish are swimming gracefully, represented by long, legato melodies which keep appearing in the upper voice. This melody is sometimes distrupted by capriccious, acrobatic movements, depicted by dotted rhytms or virtuoso runs.

I chose this recording by Seong-Jin Cho. His way of playing Debussy is mesmerizing, he uses a wide palette of different timbres and dinamics.

@une-barque-sur-l-ocean - Baki-Szmaler Noémi, guest editor

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5. Franz Liszt: Orage

The final post of this week is Orage (Storm) by Franz Liszt, who was born exactly 210 years ago on the 22nd of October, which is quite an important anniversary. Orage is the  5th movement of the first book of Anneés de Pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), and this series is inspired by his journey to Switzerland. Liszt wrote a caption for Orage, which is from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:

„But where of ye, O tempests’ is the goal?/Are ye like those within the human breast?/Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some higher nest?’’

As we can see from the quote above, Liszt had a different, more romantic approach to nature. It can not be stated exactly if the piece tells us about an inner, or a meteorological storm, or maybe both. Before the 20th century, nature was feared, and its powers were associated with transcendental phenomenons. It is important to mention the importance of the tonality too: c minor is often  associated with the individual’s struggles, or the heroic fate. Many composers used c minor when they wrote such works, for example Beethoven, who had a special relationship with this tonality and last but not least he was the role model of romantic era composers.

The storm’s different elements (wind, rain, lightning, thunder) are depicted with powerful, almost terrifying series of chords and octaves, often written in heroic, dotted rhytms. The tonality is constantly changing, with neverending chromatic modulations. In the Cadenza large arpeggious sweep through, like wind, until the finale where the rhytmic patterns are broken with sudden rests before ending on a c minor chord.

Lazar Berman’s Liszt recordings are well known, especially Anneés de Pelerinage, which is mentioned in Haruki Murakami’s books too. I find his playing quite unique compared to most Liszt recordings.

@une-barque-sur-l-ocean - Baki-Szmaler Noémi, guest editor

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3. Robert Schumann: Waldeszenen

If I had to use only one word to describe Robert Schumann’s music, I would chose the word ’personal’. His music is often inspired by his own inner world, his loved ones, or literature. In this suite short pieces follow each other, like reading through chapters of a novel, while the author guides us into an enchanted forest, showing us its hidden treasures.

We do not hear exact sounds taken from nature or their imitation: everything is seen through the eyes of a poet, the ways certain scenes make him feel.

This suite was published in 1850-1851, and contains 9 pieces with the following titles:

Entry

Hunters on the lookout

Lonely flowers

Haunted place

Friendly landscape

Wayside inn

Bird as a prophet

Hunting song

Farewell

In detail I would like to write about the third piece, called Lonely flowers, which is a tiny gem and my personal favorite form Waldeszenen. It is barely 3 minutes long (depends on the performer), but it still has a story to tell, with beautiful melodies, subtle poliphony and sudden harmonic changes from major to minor keys. Flowes are an interesting element from nature to write music about, since they do not make a sound, the composer has the freedom to express his own emotions he experienced while seeing them, so here we can hear a piece of Robert Schumann’s soul.

For this suite I chose Clara Haskil’s interpretation. She was a Romanian-Jewish pianist, an excellent performer of Scarlatti’s and Mozart’s works, but she played early romanticism era repertoire too during her career.

@une-barque-sur-l-ocean - Baki-Szmaler Noémi, guest editor

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Next week on Musica in Extenso! @une-barque-sur-l-ocean