I heard a lot that was inimitably Messiaen in this piece, yes, but something about it also put me in mind of the kind of music Tippett was writing around the same time, e.g. The Rose Lake. Not two composers I’ve ever thought to put together in the same sentence before, but, come to think of it, given their shared propensity for grand (overreaching?) philosophical conceptions, maybe that isn’t such a daft notion after all…
Hmm, it’s a long time since i’ve listened to The Rose Lake, so i’d need to dig it out and investigate. Do you mean anything specific or just generally (stylistically, aesthetically)? It’s hard to imagine Tippett writing something that sounds just like this Messiaen piece, but then my memory of The Rose Lake is poor…
It’s hard to put my finger on what precisely put me in mind of Tippett. Something about similar harmonic/gestural behaviour, maybe, and/or the orchestration? I mean, looking more broadly, they were both visionary composers in their own way, but the emphasis there is definitely on “in their own way”…
Christopher Culver
3 years ago
It feels a bit odd to call Éclairs a return to Turangalila, when it may be seen as simply a continuation of the massive scale of the more immediately preceding Des canyons aux étoiles.
The Faber & Faber Messiaen Companion ed. Peter Hill has recently been republished. Malcolm Troup’s article therein on the orchestral music of the 1950s and 1960s, is rather opinionated. He sees those pieces as Messiaen’s best, while after this period the orchestral works are marked by gigantism and bloat. I remember liking Éclairs and I need to revisit it, but there is something special about the gracefulness and digestible scale of the mid-period orchestral works.
i alluded to Turangalila simply because, to me, there’s an overall homogeneity in that piece that seems similar to that in Éclairs – but which i don’t really experience in the same way with Des canyons. Perhaps it’s just a personal thing – and you could easily argue that Turangalila and Des canyons are closer-related than Éclairs as they’re both piano concertos – but i hear Éclairs as a latter-day symphonic work, which isn’t how i hear Des canyons.
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I heard a lot that was inimitably Messiaen in this piece, yes, but something about it also put me in mind of the kind of music Tippett was writing around the same time, e.g. The Rose Lake. Not two composers I’ve ever thought to put together in the same sentence before, but, come to think of it, given their shared propensity for grand (overreaching?) philosophical conceptions, maybe that isn’t such a daft notion after all…
Hmm, it’s a long time since i’ve listened to The Rose Lake, so i’d need to dig it out and investigate. Do you mean anything specific or just generally (stylistically, aesthetically)? It’s hard to imagine Tippett writing something that sounds just like this Messiaen piece, but then my memory of The Rose Lake is poor…
It’s hard to put my finger on what precisely put me in mind of Tippett. Something about similar harmonic/gestural behaviour, maybe, and/or the orchestration? I mean, looking more broadly, they were both visionary composers in their own way, but the emphasis there is definitely on “in their own way”…
It feels a bit odd to call Éclairs a return to Turangalila, when it may be seen as simply a continuation of the massive scale of the more immediately preceding Des canyons aux étoiles.
The Faber & Faber Messiaen Companion ed. Peter Hill has recently been republished. Malcolm Troup’s article therein on the orchestral music of the 1950s and 1960s, is rather opinionated. He sees those pieces as Messiaen’s best, while after this period the orchestral works are marked by gigantism and bloat. I remember liking Éclairs and I need to revisit it, but there is something special about the gracefulness and digestible scale of the mid-period orchestral works.
i alluded to Turangalila simply because, to me, there’s an overall homogeneity in that piece that seems similar to that in Éclairs – but which i don’t really experience in the same way with Des canyons. Perhaps it’s just a personal thing – and you could easily argue that Turangalila and Des canyons are closer-related than Éclairs as they’re both piano concertos – but i hear Éclairs as a latter-day symphonic work, which isn’t how i hear Des canyons.