Reviews

Reviews: Messiaen

02.12.2008

Jubilation and reverent silence with Messiaen

‘Dazzling’ is how the end of Et expecto resurrectionem by Messiaen sounded last Saturday evening. You didn’t need to be able to hear in colour – as the composer himself was wont to do – to be singed by the vivid hues with which he depicted the Resurrection in sound.
Messiaen’s spirit was roaming The Hague this weekend. The Residentie Orkest (Hague Philharmonic) was honouring the maître born a hundred years ago.

Two concerts of one-and-a-half hours each together contained seven works. The programme provided stark contrasts in style and atmosphere. Religious fervour and musical virtuosity, avant-gardist complexity and easily absorbed melodies alongside one another. In Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine a simple choral melody is wreathed about with strings and the unearthly sound of the Ondes Martenot (an electronic intsrument.) In the hands of someone else this might have resulted in sugary sentimentality, but with Messiaen it is of unparalleled beauty, flanked by jubilant song and complex chords. Pianist Ralph van Raat cut through the softly moving musical texture with loud bird sounds. [...]
The members of the Residentie Orkest performed their often extremely virtuosic parts with stunning colours. And the Nederlands Kamerkoor’s singing of O Sacrum Convivium and Cinq Rechants was pure and crystal-clear. Conductor Reinbert de Leeuw is the finest imaginable guide to the world of Messiaen. With him art never becomes kitsch. And however slow it is, the music never loses its tension. De Leeuw is audibly a devout believer in every note of Messiaen’s. The reverent silence with which the first concert began and the audience’s jubilation at the end spoke volumes.

Winand van de Kamp in AD/Haagse Courant, 17 November 2008

With Messiaen the orchestra becomes an organ

[...] The Nederlands Kamerkoor, which is threatening to disband following a drastic cut in subsidy, provided a contribution no less outstanding, both collectively (O Sacrum Convivium) and in the solo passages of Cinq Rechants (1948). In Trois petites liturgies the ladies of the Nederlands Kamerkoor were joined by a number of girls from the National Youth Choir, which added to the angelic quality of the sound. Both choir and orchestra did occasionally appear not in total agreement, either between one another or themselves, about just how much after De Leeuw’s beat their entries should be, which resulted in a few imperfections. These could not, however, prevent the work – conducted by an almost ecstatic De Leeuw – from finishing in an atmosphere of utmost tenderness, devoid of any day-to-day worries.

Jochem Valkenburg in the NRC Handelsblad, 17 November 2008