The Justice

Media Credit: David Sheppard-Brick Jae Kyo Han (left) and Nicholas Alexander Brown (right) performed at the Messiaen Concert.

Nicholas Alexander Brown '10, the musical director of the Messiaen Centenary Concert on Saturday night, quickly began fulfilling the evening's purpose. Even as Brown introduced the night's performers, Oliver Messiaen's influence on modern music was apparent.

Messiaen was always on the forefront of experimental music during his lifetime, and many regard him as one of the most important composers of the 20th century because of his radical use of harmony, dissonance and sound in his music.

Jae Kyo Han '10 was the pianist for the evening and began the concert with Messiaen's Prelude. Prelude was characterized by the contrast between challenging and comfortable harmonies: traditionally consonant phrases were interspersed with harsh, dissonant accents. As the piece progressed, the melodious phrases became sweeter and the dissonant phrases became harsher. There was also a great variety in the rhythmic nature of the piece, as the rhythms ranged from slow and ponderous to quick and chaotic. The especially frenzied phrases were evocative of the twittering of birdsong, an aspect that is not surprising considering Messiaen's passion for ornithology.

Prelude transitioned seamlessly into the next work, Piece pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas. This piece was similarly harmonically and rhythmically unstable but was darker than Prelude. The piece's extreme gravity is very fitting: it was written in memory of one of Messiaen's mentors, Paul Dukas, who attended Paris Conservatoire with the composer. However, despite the somber mood of Piece pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas, there were still moments of poignant beauty present in the chord's dissonance.

An interesting aspect of Messiaen's music made evident when played on the piano is that even when played slowly, the chords tend to have a sense of movement created by the audible overlapping of frequencies within the chords. This sense of movement was replicated explicitly in the next Messiaen piece, Rondeau. Rondeau was dance-like rhythmically and demonstrated a sense of playfulness and lightheartedness that was not present in the tortured harmonies and ponderous melodies of the first two pieces.

Continued...

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