DOC Siciliano - Piano by J.S. Bach in Arts-Photography

Review

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A collection of papers on Messiaens music that will interest dedicated fans as well as scholarsBy Christopher CulverThe publisher Ashgate has released a great deal of scholarship on Olivier Messiaen; and the two-volume collection MESSIAEN PERSPECTIVES brings us a wide-ranging series of papers from a number of experts on the French composers music. The second volume would dealt with techniques; his influence on others and his reception; but this first volume is concerned with sources and influences on Messiaen. To give a general breakdown of the aspects of Messiaens works that are discussed here:SOURCES: Messiaen and the Prix de Rome; the sketches for "Visions de lAmen"; sources for "Vingt Regards"; Sigune von Ostens collaboration with Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod on "Harawi" in the 1980s; Messiaens sole electronic music work "Timbres-dureacute;es"; Messiaens evolving birdsong notations as shown in his notebooks from 1952-59; and the origins of "Meacute;ditations sur le mystegrave;re de la Sainte Triniteacute;".INFLUENCES: Messiaen and Mozart; the Romantic gesture in Messiaens piano music; Messiaen and sacred art; Messiaen; the "Cinq rechants" and "spiritual violence"; and finally Hugh McDonalds somewhat rambling and impressionistic but often interesting retrospect on the classical music tradition that Messiaen inherited.Christopher Dingle contributes an "intermegrave;de" between the two parts of the collection on Yvonne Loriod as both source and influence.This is an important collection. While not as accessible to more casual fans of Messiaen and 20th-century modernism as the second volume; I still think that this first volume will interest dedicated lovers of Messiaens work as well as scholars. Peter Hills paper on Messiaens birdsong notebooks; which have since become inaccessible in French archives; will offer a new appreciation of "Reacute;veil des oiseaux"; "Oiseaux exotiques" and "Catalogue doiseaux". The same goes for "Harawi"; the concerns of which are thoroughly describd by von Osten.Theres also some good myth-busting and criticism. In spite of the hostility to serialism that he publicly voiced and his own disapproval of his mid-century experimental pieces; Messiaen continued to occasionally use serialist techniques in the decades that followed. His effusive praise of Mozart is also revealed more as a product of romanticized childhood memories of his forebears music and his own aesthetic concerns than any supposed innovations in Mozart himself.