Friday, February 18, 2005

Messiaen, Olivier--Meditations sur le mystere de la Sainte Trinite, no VI

-Recorded by Hans-Ola Ericsson on the 1987 Gronlund Organ of Lulea Cathedral, Sweden
At the beginning, it starts on syncopation with a major third interval. After playing around, it moves to a chordal section that ends in dissonance and then goes to a monophonic chant. After this it patters around on an odd sequent of chords and then ends on a pretty chord it holds out. It then returns to the same sort of monophonic chant. Then it returns to the more dissonant chordal texture and ends on a beautiful chord again that moves up a whole step. Then the chant and the chords (sonorous and dissonant) get interwoven. After completing this mixture with again a big, lovely, sonorous chord, it returns to the original major third and syncopation and either almost or does repeat itself from the beginning, but the last chord moves down almost like a re do before the chant and chords get woven together again (If I can here that change, there are probably a few others, but so far the sequence of sections is about the same as far as I can tell). The whole thing lasts about nine minutes, and while I enjoy the dissonant parts, and while the chant energizes me, what I really anticipate are those nice pretty chords he plays often at the end of a section. For those moments, it's almost as though I'm listening to Phillip Glass, except the chord moves away into something else, giving me more variation and variety than would Phillip Glass. The development and the call and answer nature of the chant and chordal sections helps to move things along. Lastly, I'm an organ fiend.

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