Hall One, Kings Place
Préludes: ‘La Colombe’ and ‘Plainte calme’
Thème
et Variations
Quatuor
pour la fin du temps
Mark van de Wiel (clarinet)
Alexandra Wood (violin)
Oliver Coates (cello)
John Constable (piano)
I had not realised that Kings
Place’s current ‘Chamber Classics Unwrapped’ series had found its repertoire by
virtue of a public vote. Still more surprising was the fact that such a
poll had resulted in Messiaen’s Quartet
for the End of Time coming in at number eleven. But then, I suppose that those
likely to participate in such an exercise are probably not members of the
Katherine Jenkins fan club. At any rate, it was a welcome opportunity to hear
this extraordinary work, here given a degree of context in being prefaced by a
little more Messiaen.
Two of the piano Préludes received rather wooden
performances by John Constable – surprisingly so, given his record as pianist
in the London Sinfonietta. ‘La Colombe’ never really took flight; as with ‘Plainte
calme’, one heard the notes, and had a sense of how they might otherwise be
despatched, but little more. Debussy’s influence nevertheless shone through,
though how could it not? At any rate, the great leap forward to his mature
style would be indicated in retrospect. The Thème
et Variations fared somewhat better, gaining freedom as the performance
progressed, though Alexandra Wood’s violin was not always in tune with the
piano. We were reminded, though, quite how much Messiaen owed to Franck, not
only in his organ works. And ultimately, a sense of the ecstatic, later to be
more fully, theologically developed, was achieved.
Ensemble was undoubtedly
strengthened by the arrival of Mark can de Wiel and Oliver Coates for the Quartet. Although the music does not
ever really sound ‘like’ Schoenberg, I could not help but be put in mind from
time to time of the ever-versatile Pierrot
ensemble, here of course minus the flute, but given the varying combinations
nestling itself in the musical subconscious. From the opening ‘Liturgie de
cristal’ one is here in unmistakeable Messiaen territory, both in terms of
eschatology and musical process – though for him, and indeed for us, they are
one and the same. Coates’s cello and Constable’s piano offered reassuring irregular
regularity of pulse, above which the birds could – and did – sing. Pitch
repeated and rhythm rotated, showing once again how much ‘total serialism’ owed
to the composer who, in a very strong sense, was its founding father. So was
the scene set for the Angel’s announcement of the End of Time, angelic power
and what might just have been the sweetness – ‘blue-orange’ – of the Beatific Vision juxtaposed so as
somehow to make sense of each other. Van de Wiel’s ‘Abîme des oiseaux’ was a tour de force, but far more than that:
musical sense was ever present, likewise the birds’ heavenly opposition to the
abyss.
Following the ‘Intermède’, almost charming in a more conventionally
Gallic sense, and yet reminding us, through thematic recollection, of its
pivotal role, the Word appeared in the beginning of ‘Louange à l’Eternité de
Jésus’. Rearranged though it may be from an earlier work for six (!) ondes Martenots
for the 1937 Paris Exposition, its ecstatic manner, Coates’s cello reverent and
possessed of seemingly endless reserves of bow, shone through. Time shaded
almost into eternity, ‘infiniment lent, extatique’. The ensuing ‘Danse de la
fureur’ reinstated the primacy of rhythm as the apocalyptic seven trumpets were
evoked. All players ensured once again that crucial irregular regularity,
without which the music would have degenerated into nonsense. The climax duly
struck terror into our hearts. With the ‘Fouillis d-arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui
annonce la fin du Temps,’ there was
achieved a proper sense of summation of what had gone before, and yet hearing,
perhaps even sighting, of something new through the tangle of rainbows. With
the closing ‘Louange à l’immortalité de Jésus,’ Wood and Constable beautifully,
movingly, brought Messiaen’s earlier organ Diptyque
into what seemed in retrospect as though it should always have been its home.
Paradise, just maybe, was gimpsed through the Word made flesh.
