The several spoken interludes during this program are drawn from the writings of Messiaen’s mother, the poet Cécile Sauvage.

Theme and Variations is a relatively early work, written two years before La Nativité du Seigneur, but already including certain materials that will become a familiar part of the Messiaen vocabulary, including the modes of limited-transposition.  The limpid, lyric theme floats over repeated piano chords, then progresses through an increasingly active sequence of variations which transforms the mood from moderation to passionate alacrity.  Cresting its emotional high point in a state of intense fulfillment, the final variation lapses back into the calm of its beginnings.  Freud or Kinsey might provide a more graphic explanation.

The title of Poèmes pour Mi refers to the pet name of Messiaen’s first wife, the poet Claire Delbos.  These songs tell of love and its fulfillment, but mingled with thanksgiving and the contemplation of a sunlit landscape are frightening visions and the evocation of obstacles to be overcome, though the cycle ends in the light and with a resurgence of joy.   The songs were composed for and premiered by the dramatic soprano, Marcelle Bunlet, for whom Messiaen wrote his two subsequent song sets, Chants de Terre et de Ciel and Harawi.

Written during troubled times in the spring and summer of 1944, with Paris on the brink of collapse in the grim final months of the German Occupation, Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus is one of the most grandly conceived works in the piano literature, and the longest work that Messiaen had composed to that point.  The premiere, at a concert sponsored by Le Jeune France, featured the gifted young pianist Yvonne Loriod, who was to become Messiaen’s wife in 1961 following the death of  Delbos. This is not your expected sort of Christmas ‘suite’; in twenty movements we examine mystical contemplations of the ‘Child-God of the Manger’, the multiple gazes cast upon him by God the Father, the Church of Love, the Virgin, the Angels and Magi, and other immaterial or symbolic ‘creatures’ (Time, Silence, the Spirit of Joy).  Messiaen’s own comments provide a sense of the essence of the mood of the movements you will hear, movements of dazzling intensity, incredible tenderness, celestial beauty, and angelic athleticism.

Written during months when the apocalypse might reasonably have seemed imminent, the Quartet for the End of Time was created and premiered (by the composer and three fellow inmates) at the Görlitz interment camp.  On a chill January, using battered foundling instruments of far from ‘concert calibre’, the work made an immediate impact, as Messiaen later recounted:  “Never have I been heard with as much attention and understanding.”  The concern is with time beyond time, with the presence of the eternal in the transitory, a fundamental Messiaen theme.  If the abyss is a symbol of death and negation, in Messiaen’s outlook birdsong represents its opposite, joyful life.  These two unlikely images combine in music, first of moderation, then with lively flights, for solo clarinet (movement 3).  At the Quartet’s end, violin and piano sing a slow and tender song in the key of E (for ecstatic).

In 1928, Maurice Martenot’s imaginative exploration of electronic sound production resulted in the Ondes Martenot, a keyboard instrument capable of eerily wavering (and wonderfully engaging) tones.  Composers as diverse as Edgard Varèse and Frank Zappa found the Ondes Martenot appealing, but perhaps Olivier Messiaen was the device’s most profound advocate, using it for the first time in the Fête des Belles Eaux, one of twenty pieces commissioned for the 1937 International World's Fair in Paris.  He later called upon the Ondes Martenot in several subsequent scores, including the Turangalîla-Symphonie, Feuillets inédits, Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine and his opera Saint-François d'Assise (which requires three of the instruments!).

Perhaps unique in history, the Festival of Beautiful Waters demands a sextet of Ondes Martinot players to create its special magic.  Remember that this instrument, with its seven-octave range, variable tone colors and glissando capability, is able to play only single notes, not chords; thus every harmony is built up through collegial chamber-ensemble coordination.   At its premiere, Fête was played outside as accompaniment to a water-and-light show along the Seine.   Let Messiaen describe it:  “The night is mysterious, the deep water has a funereal aspect, the rockets gay, playful, light; the fire works show the same playful character.  On the other hand, the fountains of water are furious and terrible, or dreamy and contemplative….and, at the two times when the water attains its maximum height, one hears a long, slow phrase, nearly a prayer, which makes the water a symbol of Grace and Eternity, according to the words of the Gospel according to Saint John:  ‘The water which I shall give will become a spring of water rising up to eternal life’.” 

For those who remain for our post-concert film surprise, Paul Festa’s compelling documentary may disturb you, though it was Paul’s own complex reaction upon first hearing Messiaen’s 1931 score, Apparition de l’église éternelle, that inspired him to capture the responses of 31 artists to Messiaen. Hailed by the Mobile Press-Register as "among the most extraordinary I have ever seen or heard in a documentary," the cast ranges from prominent intellectuals (Harold Bloom) and filmmakers (John Cameron Mitchell) to drag stars (Justin Bond of Kiki & Herb) and societal fringe elements (Squeaky Blonde) to a Messiaen student (Richard Felciano) and an early Messiaen champion (the late Albert Fuller). However star-studded the cast, the film keeps its focus on the story these men and women weave together from the music. With a few exceptions, they do not know what they are going to hear. We are not told who they are; nor do we hear the score while they listen and talk. We eavesdrop as they explore the hazardous intersections that abound in Messiaen's music: between abstract music and concrete narrative, between spiritual ecstasy and physical violence, and, perhaps most importantly, the effect of Messiaen's profoundly Christian art on the nonbeliever.

Paul Festa writes: Messiaen complained of four ‘tragedies’ or ‘dramas’ in his life--that he wrote bird music for city dwellers, who never heard a bird sing in their lives; that he had elaborated a profound technique of rhythm, which people confused with jazz, which he hated; that he had this powerful synaesthetic sense that turned every chord into a distinct color, which nobody but he could see; and that he was a religious composer writing, for the most part, for nonbelievers. This movie is about Messiaen's last tragedy: What do the nonbelievers see when they hear his music? I would hope that if Messiaen could see this movie, he wouldn't consider it such a tragedy after all.

Apparition of the Eternal Church has screened throughout the US and in Europe and won several awards, including Best North American Independent Feature Film at the Indianapolis International Film Festival.