Monday 27 April 2015

Messiaen - Le merle noir

Olivier Messiaen. So, where to start? Well how about HERE and something I wrote in January about one of Messiaen's first pieces to use birdsong, the Quartet for the End of Time. Messiaen wrote that in 1940-41, but it was in the 50s when birds started to feature in his music in a very different way, trying to achieve accuracy in transcribing birdsong in a way that nobody had ever done before.





The first piece featuring his new approach to using birdsong is Le Merle Noir, The Blackbird, written in 1952. It's also probably the best piece to find your way in to listening to his full-on bird music - some of which makes for pretty difficult listening - that was to be central to almost everything he wrote up until he died in 1992.

The Blackbird's song is played on a flute (the standard instrument for most birdsong in classical music) and accompanied by piano, but the accompaniment doesn't only have a harmonic / chordal function, it also provides the sound of the colours associated with the bird and the bird's environment. Messiaen found depicting colour in music pretty easy, being blessed (or cursed?) with synesthesia, a rare neurological phenomenon where your senses sort of collide and blend. So when Messiaen heard sounds, he also saw corresponding colours in his head, and each time it was the same colours associated with the same sounds and music.

Now here's something to think about. Would you be able to work out that it's a Blackbird without the title? And that applies to all of his bird music, do the birds quoted actually sound anything like they do in the field or in recordings? And does that even matter? If he went to such pains to try and replicate these birds with such accuracy, should they be identifiable? I've been listening to all of Messiaen's music for a long, long, long, long (long [long]) time, and I'm still not sure what the answer to all of that is.

Much more of his music to come this year, so plenty of chances to think about that further. And if you want a laugh, on 22nd August I'll be competing in Bird Brain of Britain at the British Birdwatching Fair, representing the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, my specialist subject being 'birds in the music of Olivier Messiaen'. Could be catastrophic!

Anyway, I think Messiaen's Blackbird is a great piece of music, although not as nice as the real one singing outside that I'm listening to right now. And I'm pretty sure Messiaen would have agreed with me.







No comments:

Post a Comment