A dislodged myriad of instrumentation superbly handled by the BBC Philharmonic
In an orchestra setting, it is not often you find strings outnumbered by percussion, but with an atmospheric and mercurial piece like Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Des canyons aux étoiles…’ that’s what you get. On this evening, the Bridgewater Hall’s magnificent concert space was adorned with the delights of the percussive world. Aside from soloists Paul Patrick’s xylorimba and Tim Williams’ glockenspiel, we also saw an array of unique instruments such as a wind machine, a thunder sheet, and Messiaen’s own invention for this piece – the géophone.
The piece is a mystical marriage of spiritual and natural worlds. Philanthropist Alice Tully organised the original commission asking for Messiaen to commemorate the bicentenary celebration of American independence, which drew Messiaen to the wild plains and mountains of Utah. The colourful landscapes complemented Messiaen’s own synesthesia, a condition many musicians have, which, put simply, often involves being able to hear colours. In his life, Messiaen said ‘I see colours intellectually’; his days inspired by the natural palettes of Utah translated into his composition of the piece. Messiaen was also a keen ornithologist, deeming birds ‘the greatest musicians on our planet.’ Therefore, the music often mimics avian wildlife, with specific segments focusing on different species. Both these factors make for an intensely evocative piece.
Compositionally, the piece is a behemoth, running at 90 minutes with no interval, and a summary will inevitably be reductive, but I will try regardless. It is divided into three parts each consisting of subsections within which each evoke an aspect of natural or spiritual life. The beginning is frenetic yet muted with the atmosphere immediately beginning to slowly seep into the audience. The unique percussion is introduced immediately and is here to stay. We are introduced to different birds in varying pieces, until halfway through emerged a highlight, a disconnected yet impressively haunting horn solo by Martin Owen. The programme notes that ‘Appel interstellaire’ was written to eulogise a former student of Messiaen and stands out as a mesmerising movement.
The piece continues with more natural images conjured for the audience including a heavenly eighth movement ‘Les ressuscités et le chant de l’etoile Aldebaran’, plus further birdsong-inspired pieces such as ‘Le moqueur polyglotte’ played with incredible technical proficiency by pianist Steven Osborne. The piece finished with flourish in ‘La grive des bois’, my personal highlight, a piece where the BBC Philharmonic exhibited glorious cohesion.
It was this cohesion that I had craved throughout the piece. I often thought that the insertion of percussion into movements more often conflicted with than complemented the other instruments around them. There were moments where the sound of a gong or the chime of a xylorimba would dislodge my focus and cogency would be lost. I’d like to stress that this was not always the case, with moments like the ones I’ve mentioned above where the piece came together in glorious harmony. However, often I was left wanting just a bit more from each movement. Despite this inconsistency, the Philharmonic were never lacking and hit every note with precision.
So, while the music was not to my personal taste, the experience of seeing such a masterful orchestra at work was worth the visit. It was also an interesting experience seeing a piece that the programme called ‘distinctly American’ at a time where the country is so divided. It was refreshing to see a piece dedicated to the natural beauty of a country which has been marred by such turmoil recently, and I enjoyed being reminded that despite political fracture those mountains, those birds, and those sprawling plains of Utah, still exist and will continue to do so.