[This post was an unexpected journey in many ways. It started simply with having fun entering some notes by Messiaen into a computer...Eventually, I get around to that.]
For years I've had this quarter-baked idea that there are certain compositions which exhibit a special kind of small-scale perfection. Although these impressions are certainly subjective, the feeling I have is that every part of the whole has an inevitable, organic quality - almost as if the composer simply discovered a perfectly formed crystal and shared it with the world. With such pieces, it's as if the music simply generates itself like some sort of mathematical proof.
There are fine examples of this from core German composers, such as Bach's Air*, Pachelbel's You Know What, Mozart's Ave verum corpus, the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Schumann's Des Abends, Rheinberger's Abendlied, Strauss's Morgen. What all of these works have in common is a kind of continuity that makes it possible to hear the whole piece as one thing - like a beautiful sphere which simply rotates so we can experience its oneness across time.
An important part of this phenomenon (as I experience it) is that there be a certain degree of emotional detachment - which, oddly, makes it hard for me to find something to include by Schubert, Mendelssohn, or Brahms, even though all are expert at crafting miniatures. (Maybe this is the closest I can think of for Mendelssohn.) The same goes even more so for Chopin and Italian opera arias which tend towards full heart on sleeve. As a natural introvert, sometimes I appreciate a little distance from overt expressions of feeling.
On the other hand, the French sensibility is ideal for this vague, barely defined thing I'm trying to articulate. Stravinsky famously compared Ravel to a Swiss watchmaker, and it is that kind of craftsmanship I have in mind. A perfectly made watch can be a thing of beauty, but it also exhibits a pure, objective kind of elegance which is the perfect marriage of machine and magic. Each little part does its part in sync with others and the result is a very slow and perfectly coordinated ballet which marks time. Each movement (a word which happens to be connected with watches and music) is logically connected to what comes before and after. Music which exhibits such elegance is often less about feeling on the surface, though our response to that formal satisfaction might feel emotional in a less obvious way.
Ravel has some lovely miniatures, including this exquisite Menuet, and perhaps even this paradoxical monstrosity (which I love). But my favorite examples of this kind of...you know, I almost used the word "confection," but that's not right as that would be too sweet...my favorite examples of this kind of crystalline construct are not from Ravel or Debussy. (Debussy wrote some excellent miniatures, but they are too improvisatory or too sensual to qualify here.)
The ideal embodiment of this kind of nonchalant perfection has to be Couperin's Les Barricades Mystérieuses, a work which has its own mythology. (I highly recommend checking out the multiple subsections found under the "Mysterious Barricades" tab there.)
That's not my favorite recording (I prefer something fleeter), but I chose it because the visual of the score, with its lovely interlocking suspensions, is such a part of how I experience this music. (I also like this recording, although the sound is a little too soupy.) Maybe that's part of what I'm looking for - music that looks the part even when you don't hear it. It's hard not to feel that this music really could unlock something purer and deeper in how we understand the world. Music which sounds right on a sub-aural level? (Once again, this concept is only a quarter baked!)
Honestly, nothing quite matches Couperin's barricades for balance and subdued expression. (The music doesn't tell you what to feel, but it might make you feel something profound.) Moving on to other French composers, there are a couple of perfect tunes which are perhaps too famous and too expressive for this topic, but still worth mentioning: Gounod's uncanny "discovery" of a melody which floats above a Bach prelude and Saint-Saëns' perfectly poised evocation of a floating swan. (Sorry, Massenet, great tune - but too sappy!)
Fauré perhaps come closest with this song, which loses points for being a bit too emotional but gains points for the refined counterpoint in the piano part. Turn it into a piano solo (why haven't I done this?**) and it would be a model example. Poulenc offers a few options as well, including this and this. Both of those songs are deeply expressive, but contained within French reserve.
An unexpected entry here, which nevertheless always finds its way into my thinking on this topic, is the brilliant Widor Toccata. As thrilling and dramatic as it can be, the perpetual motion figuration and the inexorable logic of the harmonies give it the same sense of inevitability and unified construction as other works mentioned here. I play it every Easter Sunday, and from the moment I dive in, it feels like one big spin cycle from beginning to end.
Before I get to my final destination, I have to mention the Satie Gymnopédies, works which certainly look the part and are almost caricatures of this idea. As I've written before, they are directionless in a way that maybe seems less meticulous than a classic watch, but they beautifully embody the concept: a musical entity generated by a single idea which spins out for no other reason than its own internal logic. (Maybe more like mobiles than watches?) When everything lines up, experiencing these hand ballets is like stepping outside of time.
So...speaking of stepping outside of time, the composition which prompted all of this is by a composer who is more known for big, bold, heterogeneous works, including one about the end of time. When writing about Olivier Messiaen some years ago, I observed that his music "might variously be characterized as old-fashioned, modern, sweet, brutal, simple, challenging, mystical, colorful, sensual, sacred, jazzy, naturalistic, intellectual, etc." Messiaen's motet O sacrum convivium! - a relatively early, very approachable work - isn't brutal in any way, but just about everything else in that list might apply. Here's a lovely starter recording, sung a cappella:
I first encountered this music when subbing as an accompanist for a local chorus, and I fell in love from the first rehearsal. Even the feeling of playing those ripe chords on the keys - the exotic F-sharp Major key signature, the unusual spellings, the hypnotically asymmetrical rhythms. I've since had my church choir sing it with organ accompaniment, and I've played it as an organ solo multiple times during church. Although it looks a little intimidating at first, it turns out to be very easy and gratifying to play on the organ. (I can handle a pedal part which moves that slowly and infrequently.)
Because the choir is going to sing it again, I decided to create practice parts for them - which meant I had the extra privilege of getting to encounter and manipulate these notes from the engraving point of view. A major theme of this blog is that this kind of encounter can be as enlightening as playing or listening to music.
I also knew there was tremendous potential energy in having the notes entered as data, and because this music can feel like it flirts with the eternal, I realized I would have to experiment with s..t..r..e..t..c..h..i..n..g it out, as I've done with other works in the past. This proved as satisfying as I'd hoped, and so we'll end today's journey with a couple of very different extremes.
First of all, just as Couperin's mysterious barricades have drawn lots of interest outside of the classical world, especially with guitarists, I was surprised - and not surprised - to find multiple guitarists as well as marimbaists and jazz ensembles playing Messiaen's motet. The harmonies definitely lend themselves to those worlds, although it would seem that this music demands a constant sustain not natural to guitar. But I knew from my first time accompanying that this music is very satisfying on the piano, so I've made this informal little practice room version. I wish the pedal was quieter, but this is the kind of thing I'd love to include if I ever get around to creating another "Introspective Recital." I love the way it looks on the page, I love the way it feels under the fingers, and I love the way it sings and rings. (You may notice I took some liberties as to when I re-play repeated notes in the lower voices, although I haven't done very careful thinking about it. UPDATE (10/20/24): This is a newer recording on a better piano. The original version I posted is here.)
But, at the other extreme is my new hyper-sustained version. The slowest "real" recording I'd found was one led by Myung-Whun Chung clocking in at just over seven minutes. Using virtual instruments, I created a "performance" - which will surely horrify some - which almost doubles that. (Yes, I could extend out to infinity, but I wanted to keep the metrical pacing within perceptive reach.) In part because I find the synthetic sustained sounds can be a bit dull and because I liked the idea of an underlying pulse, I mischievously added some distant drum loops to which I'm now rather attached, but I'll leave that version in the playlist at the end of this post. This version is just pure sustain.
So there you have it, two quite different takes on an extraordinary four...or seven...or fourteen minutes of music - music in which the composer evokes the wonder and mystery of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. And he does seem to have captured something that is both tangible and earthly while also linking to something transcendental. Messiaen would touch on such glimpses of the eternal many times more, most notably in both the fifth movement and the final movement of his Quartet for the End of Time. I love both of those movements, but whereas the composer spins out endless melodies there (which would really suffer if played by non-humans), it feels as if the entire O sacrum convivium! is generated by the vibrant major seventh harmony with which it opens. I've listened to my fourteen-minute versions many times now and find they pull me along just as inexorably as if played in a quarter of that time.
To give you a sense of the broad range of ways in which Messiaen's motet can be adapted, I've created this playlist which includes my new videos plus many varied takes in all sorts of contexts. I'm not surprised this music has transcended its expected classical boundaries. Hopefully, you'll enjoy getting to know it as well. Although I'm sure not everything on the list will be to everyone's tastes (and some might even be mildly scandalized), it's true of Messiaen in general that while his music has something for everyone, most will also find something bewildering in his idiosyncratic style. I love the Quartet for the End of Time and at least parts of the enormous Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus - and yet there are times when I have no idea what he's getting at. For me, that strangeness is strangely part of his appeal.
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P.S. One more honorable mention in the "whatever this category turns out to be" is Charles Stanford's partsong, The Blue Bird, which cast a spell on me decades ago which has never been broken. You may hear my piano take on it here, and note that its warm key of G-flat Major is the enharmonic equivalent of Messiaen's bright F-sharp Major. (They use the same set of mostly black-key pitches - and yet they somehow feel quite different, at least in part due to the appearances of the scores.)
Also, since quite to my surprise this post has now cited more than twenty different works, I'm adding a playlist which includes them all for convenience. (Yes, I've made a few "unusual" choices for recordings to include.) If you're wondering if my shaky thesis about a particular kind of perfect work is just an excuse for me to write about music I like - well, why do you think I have this blog?
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* In re-reading my "German" list, I realize the most obvious choice (among many) for a Bach piece in this mold is the C Major Prelude from WTC, Book I. Sometimes, I actually find that piece too mechanical, and I'm surely biased by feeling that the Gounod "Ave Maria" melody is what brings out its best qualities. But whenever I play it, it does seem perfect, and it feels very gratifying under the hands. The Air I mention can invite a bit of Romantic indulgence, but when played properly, its poised counterpoint is spellbinding.
** UPDATE (10/22/24): Now I have!
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