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Olivier Messiaen Les Corps Glorieux Le Banquet céleste Apparition de l’Eglise éternelle Timothy Byram-Wigfield The Organ of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
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Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Timothy Byram-Wigfield The Organ of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
8. Le
Les Corps Glorieux 1. Subtilité 2. Les
Eaux de la Grâce
3. L'Ange
aux parfums
4. Combat 5. Force 6. Joie 7. Le
des Corps glorieux
[5:23]
9. Apparition
[3:14]
Total Timing
[1:30
de l'Eglise éternelle
[8:53] [65:00]
[7:53]
de la Mort et de la Vie
et Agilité des Corps glorieux
et Clarté des Corps glorieux
Mystère de la Sainte Trinité
Recorded in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on 20, 21, and 22 September 2004 by kind permission of the Dean and Canons of Windsor. Producer: Paul Baxter Engineer: Adam Binks 24-Bit digital editing: Adam Binks
Banquet céleste
[15:07] [3:45] [5:41] [8:24]
Booklet design: Margareta Jönsson Photography: © Delphian Records by kind permission of the Dean and Canons of Windsor Photograph editing: Dr Raymond Parks
Cover Image: Messiaen at La Trinité, private collection of Nigel Simeone Organ of Windsor Chapel built and maintained by Harrison & Harrison Ltd. Made and printed in the United Kingdom
© 2005 Delphian Records Ltd 2005 Delphian Records Ltd Original 24-bit sound recordings made by Delphian Records Ltd Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk
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Olivier Messiaen Le Banquet céleste Apparition de l'Eglise éternelle Les Corps glorieux Messiaen spent the summer of 1928 at the home of his aunts at Fuligny, a village in the Aube. While there, he composed an orchestral work as a student exercise for his teacher Paul Dukas which he later called Le Banquet eucharistique, though its one and only performance was given by a student orchestra at the Paris Conservatoire on 22 January 1930 with the title Le Banquet céleste (a concert where Messiaen's work was on the same programme as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). Messiaen was unhappy with the piece, describing it as 'very long' and 'neither very well scored nor very well constructed', and he also 'found it bombastic, in other words, not good'. According to his own recollections, it was during the same summer holiday that he produced a much shorter version, rewritten for organ, derived from the best section of the orchestral work. The result was Le Banquet céleste, a slow meditation on the 'Heavenly Banquet', the Eucharist. In 1936 Messiaen included a succinct commentary on his earliest surviving organ work in a letter to Felix Aprahamian: '“He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood will dwell in me and I in
him” (Gospel according to St John). The prayer of a communicant to Jesus present in him through the Eucharist.' Messiaen had been a member of Marcel Dupré's preparatory organ class for only a year when he wrote Le Banquet céleste, and even though he made astonishingly rapid progress on the instrument, he was still something of a novice. Dupré later recalled their first meeting: He joined my class in October 1927. When he came out to Meudon for the first time (he was nineteen), he sat stupefied in front of the manuals of my organ. He had never seen an organ console before. After an hour of explanations and demonstrations, I gave him the Bach C minor Fantasia to learn. He came back a week later and played it to me by heart, perfectly; an astonishing feat! In class he didn't fidget, but seemed to me to be rather distracted. I confided this to his father, an English teacher at the Lycée Charlemagne, who replied: 'I've had hundreds of children pass through my hands, but Olivier is the only one I've completely failed to understand. All I can say is that, at table, he interrupts every conversation to talk about you.'
There was an immediate meeting of minds between Dupré and the young Messiaen, and they became lifelong friends. The May exams for the organ class in 1928 included a
composition for organ based on a given theme. Messiaen later included a set of Variations écossaises for organ (1928) in his list of works, and one of the themes set that year was the Scottish folk-song 'Comin' through the rye'. Mind-boggling as it may seem, this is almost certainly the melody on which Messiaen's variations were based: his first attempt to write for the organ, now lost.
touchingly whole-hearted support – not least in reassuring the church's authorities about the maturity of his protégé – was crucial to the appointment being made. Positions of this kind came up rarely in large Parisian churches – Dupré himself was not appointed titulaire at Saint-Sulpice until 1934, having served as Widor's assistant there for twentyeight years – so Messiaen's nomination was all the more remarkable.
Messiaen's appointment as titulaire of the Trinité in September 1931 was not without complications. Two factors could have counted against him: his age (he was only twentytwo) and his earlier track-record as a deputy for the ailing incumbent, Charles Quef, when he had occasionally upset parishioners with the boldness of his improvisations (he had deputised regularly at the Trinité since autumn 1929). Both issues were resolved in a series of letters to the Parish Priest from Messiaen's supporters, who included some very distinguished names: CharlesMarie Widor (who had taught Messiaen composition at the Conservatoire in 1926-7), André Marchal (titulaire of Saint-Germaindes-Prés, who had asked his own students to stand aside so that Messiaen's appointment could proceed smoothly), Charles Tournemire (for whom Messiaen had occasionally deputised at SainteClotilde), and Marcel Dupré, whose
Messiaen's first recital at the Trinité had been on 20 February 1930, when he gave a concert for Les Amis de l'Orgue which included the première of the Diptyque – an occasion which also marked his concert début in Paris. After becoming titulaire in September 1931, the first work he composed for the Trinité organ was Apparition de l'Eglise éternelle, described by him in 1936 (in the same letter to Aprahamian that included the note on Le Banquet céleste) as: 'An enormous and granite-like crescendo. It appears and then disappears. The pedals mark the hammerblows of Grace that built the cosmos.' It is uncertain when the work was first played in public. It was composed during 1932, the year in which he was married to the composer and violinist Claire Delbos (22 June) – an occasion attended by at least one fellow-pupil from Dupré's class, Jean Langlais. It is likely that Messiaen played
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Olivier Messiaen the work at the Trinité as soon as it was finished, but the first known public performance took place three years later. For several months in 1934-5, the Trinité organ was out of action while it was under repair and seven new stops were added. So it was that on 28 January 1935 Messiaen gave the first performance of the organ version of L'Ascension at SaintAntoine-des-Quinze-Vingts, and the earliest documented performance of Apparition de l'Eglise was given by Messiaen at Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge on 14 May. In the same programme he included the first of Langlais's Poèmes évangéliques ('La Nativité') and Scherzetto, and La Vierge berce l'Enfant by Claire Delbos.
During the 1930s, Messiaen established himself as a composer of orchestral music and of songs: his early symphonic pieces, especially Les Offrandes oubliées, were mostly given a warm welcome by Parisian critics. In the second half of the decade he composed two song-cycles: Poèmes pour Mi (a celebration of the joys of marriage, dedicated to his wife Claire) and Chants de terre et de ciel (which includes songs about the delights of childhood, written after the birth of the Messiaen's son Pascal in 1937). But it was in the preface to an organ work, La Nativité du Seigneur, that he chose to publish his most innovative thinking about his musical language in the 1930s, and it was also his largest composition to date.
Messiaen and Dupré shared the programme of the concert to inauguarate the newlyrestored Trinité organ on 28 May 1935, an occasion which included a charming mutual homage as Dupré played Messiaen's Le Banquet céleste (one of its earliest public performances) and Messiaen played two movements from his teacher's Le Chemin de la Croix. On 27 February 1936, La Nativité du Seigneur was given its première in a special concert organised by Les Amis de l'Orgue at the Trinité, with the work shared out amongst three of Messiaen's organist friends: Daniel-Lesur, Jean-Jacques Grunenwald and Langlais.
La Nativité was published in March 1936, and later that year Messiaen's music was heard in Britain for the first time, at the concerts of the Organ Music Society (arranged by Felix Aprahamian). On 20 October 1936 at St John's, Red Lion Square, Noëlie Pierront played Le Banquet céleste and on 12 November André Marchal gave the British première of Apparition de l'Eglise éternelle. A year later (9 December 1937 at the West London Synagogue), André Fleury played four movements from La Nativité, and in 1938, Messiaen himself travelled to London for the first time, giving a complete performance of La Nativité at St Alban the
Martyr, Holborn on 25 June. It was performances like these of his organ works – rather than those of his other music – which were an early indication of the much greater international success that was to follow after World War II. When Messiaen turned again to the idea of an organ cycle in the late 1930s, the theological theme he chose was that of the Glorified Bodies of those who had been resurrected. Les Corps glorieux was completed on 25 August 1939, a week before the outbreak of World War II. Since 1936, when the Messiaens had acquired the land and built their tiny house at Petichet in the Dauphiné, they had spent the summers there, overlooking the Lac de Laffrey. It is an idyllic spot, and it was where Messiaen did much of his composing for the rest of his life. He later recalled that 'Les Corps glorieux was the last work I composed as a civilian. It was just being finished when I was called up. After that, the manuscript remained in the countryside for a while.' The composer returned to Paris to take up his posting and became 'Soldat Messiaen Olivier, 620e R.I. Pionniers, 2e Bataillon, 5e Compagnie.' Writing to Jean Langlais in November 1939, Messiaen mentioned that 'I left a work unfinished when I was mobilised', a reference to Les Corps glorieux. No registrations had been
fixed, and Messiaen undoubtedly wanted to make revisions before considering it complete. He mentioned it again in a letter published in the March 1940 issue of the journal L'Orgue: While I'm out on marches, trudging over bridges covered with sacks, or during the hours on watch when the only company is an enormous red moon and my feet feel as if they are burning with cold in the deep snow, I often find myself singing certain melodies, certain favourite rhythms, and going over in my head the most important parts of my latest organ work, interrupted by the war. Whether it was a presentiment or a painful irony, I don't know – but it deals with the Resurrection of the bodies. Will I ever be able to complete it? I'll wait, because you have to know how to wait, especially as a soldier, and so 'I hitch my wagon to a star' (as the Mexican proverb says), to the only star which is really any use at the moment: Christian hope.
Messiaen was taken prisoner in June 1940. After repatriation, he returned to Paris in May 1941 and took up his new post as a harmony teacher at the Conservatoire, and his old one at the Trinité. His latest organ work, which had lain untouched for eighteen months, still needed revision, but he was busy with his Conservatoire class, and with preparing the Paris première Quatour pour la fin du Temps which had been written in captivity. On 26
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Olivier Messiaen June 1941 he wrote to Claire that he had 'not yet tried out Les Corps glorieux at the Trinité', but a few weeks later, on 22 July, he took his Conservatoire pupils to the Trinité for a complete private performance while he was in the process of adding fingering, pedalling and registrations for the work's publication. It was to be more than two years before the complete work was heard in public, but on 28 December 1941, Messiaen gave a recital at the Palais de Chaillot which included two movements from the new cycle: 'Joie et clarté des corps glorieux' and 'Combat de la mort et de la vie'; a review by Norbert Dufourcq appeared in L'Information musicale: It is the sign of a great artist, coupled with a great spirit, that he is no slave to procedures. […] In the second part of the concert, the composer presented and championed his own works […] two pieces receiving their first performances, taken from a collection entitled Les Corps glorieux. […] It is through his continual experiments into the opposition of ideas and of the clash of different moods that Olivier Messiaen attains the power to move us. In this respect, no musical instrument can serve him better than his own, which he plays with true virtuosity.
In June 1942, despite chronic wartime paper-shortages, two major new Messiaen works appeared in print: the Quatuor pour
la fin du Temps from Durand, and Les Corps glorieux from Leduc. Just as he had asked friends to give the first performance of La Nativité, he evidently intended to do something similar for his new organ work, noting in November 1942: 'Litaize and Langlais will be giving the concert at the [Palais de] Chaillot after Duruflé. Offer them the first performance of Les Corps glorieux, and write to [Noëlie] Pierront about the same work for the Trinité.' These plans came to nothing, and the first complete public performance took place in a series of recitals which Messiaen himself gave at the Trinité in November 1943. During three early evening concerts in a freezing cold church, Messiaen played virtually all of his organ works along with L'Offrande à Marie, a new piece by his wife Claire, who was starting to show early signs of the mental illness that was to cast a blight over her last years (she died in 1959). The first recital took place on 15 November and included Les Corps glorieux and Apparition de l'Eglise éternelle. On 17 November Messiaen played Claire's new work, framing it with 'Transports de joie' (the only movement from L'Ascension which was originally conceived for organ) and Le Banquet céleste. The final programme, on 19 November, was a complete performance of La Nativité.
Described by its composer as 'a pendant to La Nativité du Seigneur', Les Corps glorieux, subtitled 'Sept Visions brèves de la Vie des Ressuscités' ('Seven short Visions of the Life of the Resurrected') was the most daring and original of Messiaen's organ works up to that time, ranging from the bold austerity of a single-line 'monodie' of the opening, to the considerable complexity – structural and musical – of the vast central movement, 'Combat de la mort et de la vie'. In an interview published in 1954, Francis Poulenc had this to say about Messiaen's organ music:
© 2005 Nigel Simone Nigel Simeone is Professor of Historical Musicology at the University of Sheffield. His latest book is Messiaen (written with Peter Hill), the first full-length biography of the composer, which draws extensively on Messiaen's own diaries and papers. It was published by Yale University Press in September 2005.
I admire it deeply, since Messiaen has put the best of himself into it. La Nativité and Les Corps glorieux contain passages of genius. If I bristle (above all from a literary point of view) when Messiaen invents a pseudo-hindu language mixed with outdated symbolism […] it gives me pleasure to salute, in his organ music, the very great musician that he undoubtedly is.
Thanks to Geraint Watkins and Ben Giddens.
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The Organ of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle Harrison & Harrison of Durham, 1965/2002
Pedal Organ 20 stops 1. Sub Bourdon 32 2. Open Diapason 16 3. Bourdon 16 4. Dulciana 16 5. Quintadena (from Swell) 16 6. Principal (18 from no. 2) 8 7. Flute (18 from no. 3) 8 8. Dulciana (18 from no. 4) 8 9. Fifteenth 4 10. Röhrflöte 4 11. Open Flute 2 12. Mixtures (19. 22. 26. 29) IV ranks 13. Double Trombone 32 (18 from no. 14) 14. Trombone 16 15. Fagotto 16 16. Tromba (18 from no. 14) 8 17. Bassoon (18 from no. 15) 8 18. Octave Tromba (18 from no. 16) 4 19. Schalmei 4 20. Kornet 2 Choir to Pedal I Great to Pedal II Swell to Pedal III Solo to Pedal IV
Choir Organ 21. Quintadena 22. Gedackt 23. Principal 24. Spitzflöte 25. Wald Flute 26. Sesquialtera (12. 17.) 27. Cimbel (29. 33. 36.) 28. Krummhorn Tremulant
15 stops 8 8 4 4 2 II ranks III ranks 8 V
On the Screen Diapason 30. Lieblichflöte 31. Octave 32. Lieblichflöte 33. Super Octave 34. Mixture (19. 22. 26. 29.) 35. Trompette Swell to Choir Solo to Choir
8 8 4 4 2 IV ranks 8 VI VII
29.
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Great Organ 13 stops 36. Double Diapason 16 37. Open Diapason I 8 38. Open Diapason II 8 39. Stopped Diapason 8 40. Principal 4 41. Open Flute 4 42. Fifteenth 2 43. Block Flute 2 44. Cornet II - V ranks 45. Mixture (19. 22. 26. 29.) IV ranks 46. Double Trumpet 16 47. Trumpet 8 48. Clarion 4 Choir to Great VIII Swell to Great IX Solo to Great X Great Reeds on Pedal XI Screen Choir on Great XII
Swell Organ 16 stops Quintadena 16 50. Violin Diapason 8 51. Lieblich Gedackt 8 52. Echo Gamba 8 53. Voix Celestes (from ten. c.) 8 54. Principal 4 55. Rohr Flöte 4 56. Nazard 22/3 57. Fifteenth 2 58. Tierce 13/5 59. Mixture (22. 26. 29. 33.) IV ranks 49.
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Oboe Vox Humana 62. Contra Fagotto 63. Cornopean 64. Clarion Tremulant Octave. Solo to Swell 60. 61.
Solo Organ Cor de Nuit 66. Concert Flute 67. Viole d'Orchestre 68. Viole Celeste 69. Corno di Bassetto 70. Orchestral Oboe Tremulant 71. Orchestral Trumpet (unenclosed) 72. Orchestral Clarion (unenclosed) Octave Sub Octave Unison Off 65.
8 8 16 8 4 XIII XIV XV 8 stops 8 4 8 8 8 8 XVI 8 4 XVII XVIII XIX
Eight toe pistons to the Pedal Organ Ten thumb pistons to the Choir Organ Eight thumb pistons to the Great Organ Eight thumb pistons to the Swell Organ Eight toe pistons to the Swell Organ Six thumb pistons to the Solo Organ Eight thumb General Pistons, duplicated by transfer on to Swell toe pistons Two adjustable pistons for all the couplers Eight lockable memories to the Divisional Pistons Thirty-two lockable memories to the General Pistons Stepper thumb and toe pistons (forward and reverse) Reversible pistons to Great to Pedal (thumb and toe), Swell to Pedal, Swell to Great (thumb and toe), Choir to Pedal, Solo to Pedal, Solo to Great, Choir to Great, Swell to Choir, Solo to Choir, Solo to Swell General cancel piston © 2005 St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle All Rights Reserved
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Timothy Byram-Wigfield Timothy Byram-Wigfield is Director of Music at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. A chorister at King’s College, Cambridge, he began his studies with James Parsons whilst at Oundle School, continuing at the Royal College of Music with Richard Popplewell. Whilst Organ Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, and Sub Organist at Winchester Cathedral, Timothy continued his studies with David Sanger, during which time he was a finalist in the Performer of the Year award, promoted by the Royal College of Organists.
Timothy appears on 12 Organs of Edinburgh, (Priory Records PRCD-700AB) which was nominated by The Gramophone magazine as one of the best organ releases of 2000. A recording of orchestral transcriptions at the famous Lewis organ in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow (Delphian DCD34004) was similarly nominated one of the best organ releases of 2004: “Byram-Wigfield’s performances are superb: carefully crafted interpretations played with consummate skill” and was also nominated Editor’s Choice in Organists’ Review. Future recording projects with Delphian comprise a disc of Alfred Hollins’ music on the Harrison & Harrison 1923 organ of the Caird Hall, Dundee.
In 1991 Timothy was appointed Master of the Music at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh. During his time there he trained the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus and toured widely as a recitalist. In 1999 he took up the new post of Director of Music at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he combined his choral activities in college with teaching and playing, before arriving in Windsor in 2004.
Timothy’s duties at St George’s Chapel centre on the famous choir of men and boy choristers, which sings every day during term-time and three times on Sundays. The Choir tours abroad, most recently to Switzerland, France, and the U.S.A, and takes part in a number of ceremonies of royal significance. The Choir is undertaking a number of recordings on the Naxos and Delphian labels.
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