Search - Olivier Messiaen, Rudolf Innig :: Olivier Messiaen: Complete Organ Works, Vol. 1

Arguably Messiaen's most important organ work

Mark Swinton | 08/19/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Olivier Messiaen: undeniably one of the greats of the twentieth century. His musical language, developed as a quest by his prodigious mind to seek a clear and true expression of the profoundest mysteries of Catholic faith, continues to influence many a generation of composer and listener nearly eighty years after it first appeared. It is inimitable; a mixture of chords derived from scales that are unconventionally inflexible, rhythms that are borrowed from Far Eastern sources, a use of instruments (or in this case organ registrations) that are unlike any ever devised. Overall, Messiaen was a composer who broke through the frontiers of conventional music-making and found a level of originality that few have been able to match."La Nativite" is one of his most important works - his first major symphonic 'cycle' composed exclusively for organ, designed to be played during the Christmas season (or at the very least to evoke it) but having little to do with traditional carols or picture-postcard imagery. Whilst some of the movements - "The Angels," "The Shepherds" and "The Wise Men" - are a portrayal of certain characters "that lend a particular poetry to the Christmas Feast," Messiaen concerns himself with much higher spiritual issues, offering a depiction of "Jesus accepting Suffering" by being born in a vast and terrifying cry to the world; a curiously lyrical and yet far-away depiction of "The Virgin and the Infant" at the start of the cycle; a virtuosic and powerful image of "God Among Us" at the end of the cycle. It is a work about which much has been written, and yet may still be looked upon as a complete mystery, which cannot be understood any more than certain aspects of a Divine Presence - God - may be understood. To listen to it all at once is an overwhelming experience, but if you can grow accustomed to the composer's language (if, indeed, you have already experienced it through other works), then you will find it a truly great and stunning work that will sear itself into your memory.Rudolf Innig, at the helm of an impressive German organ in a building with acoustics to rival those of the largest cathedrals in Europe or the USA, gives an admirable performance of this difficult work. He traverses extended periods of rapid virtuosity with as much ease as the extremely slow and quiet moments, and although his instrument is not of the Cavaille-Coll (French) design for which Messiaen wrote, he still manages to capture most of the composer's precise and finely-crafted sound world. It's just a pity that there is not more on the disc - at 47 minutes, "La Nativite" is not much longer than a Romantic or post-Romantic orchestral symphony and I sometimes wonder if more could have been added to the programme. On the other hand, if you choose to listen to the work as an unbroken whole, you will probably find that it needs nothing more to complement it.A powerful experience, and easily a definitive rendition of this very significant organ work."