Messiaen's Fauvette passerinette
Western subalpine warbler by Rodrigo Saldanha de Almeida Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was one of a number of World War II prisoners of war who passed the time in captivity by studying birds. But whereas John Buxton, Peter Conder and George Waterston went on to publish their detailed observations on the way to illustrious careers as ornithologists, Messiaen’s meticulous note-taking was of the musical kind.
Famously, he finished his ground-breaking Quartet for the End of Time in Stalag VIII-A, Görlitz. Invoking the songs of blackbirds and nightingales, it was the first major work written in what was to become known as his style oiseau. In the two decades that followed, he wrote dozens of works that were either explicitly studies in transcribing birdsong, or other works – usually religious – that used material from his extensive collection of birdsong notations he had amassed during regular expeditions into the countryside.
Famously, he finished his ground-breaking Quartet for the End of Time in Stalag VIII-A, Görlitz. Invoking the songs of blackbirds and nightingales, it was the first major work written in what was to become known as his style oiseau. In the two decades that followed, he wrote dozens of works that were either explicitly studies in transcribing birdsong, or other works – usually religious – that used material from his extensive collection of birdsong notations he had amassed during regular expeditions into the countryside.
Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux comprises seven books of piano pieces based on birdsong he had transcribed in the field. These date from the early 1950 and it was not until 1970 that he wrote another significant piano piece based on birdsong, La Fauvette des Jardins - The Garden Warbler. Although he wrote birdsong-influenced pieces for orchestral and choral forces for the rest of his life, La Fauvette des Jardins was his last major piano work of its kind.
Peter Hill Peter Hill is the foremost pianist/scholar to have specialised in Messiaen, and he has performed and recorded the definitive interpretations of the birdsong pieces. He has studied Messiaen’s original field notes as well as the finished scores, and, most importantly, the songs of the birds themselves. In 2012, among Messiaen’s papers Hill discovered what appeared to be several pages of a draft of a previously unknown piano work, dating from the summer of 1961.
La Fauvette Passerinette -The Subalpine Warbler - was virtually complete: the pencil manuscript indicated it was ready for rewriting as a fair copy, complete with pedalling and fingering indications. Passerinette seems to have been intended as the start of a new piano cycle. He would treat birdsong in a very different way to before, with the birdsong generating the harmonies rather than being scored against harmonic backgrounds that evoked the bird’s habitat.
I received an email from Peter Hill announcing his discovery and inviting me to attend that very rare thing: a Messiaen world premiere, which took place a year ago in Sheffield. Now the new piece has been recorded and made the top 20 classical albums chart – not bad for modernist music. It was featured on CD Review at the weekend and can be heard for another 4 weeks by clicking the button.
La Fauvette Passerinette -The Subalpine Warbler - was virtually complete: the pencil manuscript indicated it was ready for rewriting as a fair copy, complete with pedalling and fingering indications. Passerinette seems to have been intended as the start of a new piano cycle. He would treat birdsong in a very different way to before, with the birdsong generating the harmonies rather than being scored against harmonic backgrounds that evoked the bird’s habitat.
I received an email from Peter Hill announcing his discovery and inviting me to attend that very rare thing: a Messiaen world premiere, which took place a year ago in Sheffield. Now the new piece has been recorded and made the top 20 classical albums chart – not bad for modernist music. It was featured on CD Review at the weekend and can be heard for another 4 weeks by clicking the button.
RSS Feed
