Jumping the gun a bit, ChamberBridge presented three programs of music by Olivier Messiaen, his associates, and major family members Saturday in Old First Church. The programs were set up to honor Messiaen's centennial — which actually occurs on the 10th of next month. The survey was most unusual, as festivals go, since relatively little of the composer's actual works appeared amid the programs, set forward under the rubric of "Messiaen Illuminated."
The first half of the three o'clock matinee opened with Feuillets Inédits No. 3, based on Messiaen's birdcall sketch books as arranged by his second wife, pianist Yvonne Loriod. That is scored for a duo of the electronic ondes Martenot and piano. This was followed by André Jolivet's Incantation (1937) for solo ondes Martenot, and by Messiaen's Vocalise (1935), which he himself arranged for oboe and piano from his vocal original. Then came something familiar: Debussy's three Chansons de Bilitis (1898), before Messiaen's Trois Mélodies (1929). Those formed the half of it.
Part two began with Messiaen's Fantaisie (1933) for violin and piano, and continued with the U.S. premiere of Claire Delbos' Primevère (1936) for voice and piano, and the first book of Messiaen's Poèmes pour Mi (1936). Performers included Mary Chun, ondes Martenot; pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann; soprano Lara Bruckmann; and violinist Kate Stenberg. On the whole, performances were all first rate.
Messiaen led a very active life (1908-1992) as organist, theorist, poet, prisoner of war, teacher, ornithologist, and worker in the religious music of several ancient cultures. Born in Avignon, he studied organ in Paris with Marcel Dupré and composition with Paul Dukas, before being appointed organist at l'Eglise de la Sainte Trinité in 1931. In 1936, he cofounded "La Jeune France" with Jolivet, Daniel-Lesur, and Yves Baudrier, and later served in World War II (during which he was captured and imprisoned).
During all this, he founded an entirely new concept of how music could be put together and used for acceptable, religiously oriented pieces that were easily accessible to the general public. Few of the avant-garde can claim as much accomplishment from their own time — certainly not Messiaen's two most famous pupils, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockausen (neither of whom, by the way, was presented on these programs).
Heuwell Tircuit is a composer, performer, and writer who was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote previously for Chicago American and the Asahi Evening News.