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2008 Recital Series
July 2008
The 2008 recital series with many recitals featuring works by Olivier Messiaen in his centennary year is in full swing.
Some remarks from events so far this year are included here.
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22nd May 2008 From the Daily Info, Oxford:
Gillian Weir played an inspired programme of Bach and Messiaen in Saturday's concert in Christ Church Cathedral. It's the 100th anniversary of Messiaen's birth, so probably a busy year for Weir, the doyenne of Messiaen's organ works. It's quite a coup for Music At Oxford to have staged this bold concert, in the strangely intimate setting of one of the smallest cathedrals in the country.
Bach and Messiaen may seem odd bedfellows, but the partnership works. Movements from Messiaen's Messe de la Pentecôte alternate with 21 Chorale Preludes based on Lutheran hymn tunes, from Bach's Clavier-Ubung. The depth of expression in each match beautifully, and Weir seems perfectly at home playing both genres, needing as little time to clear her musical palate as the audience do. With no applause between movements the atmosphere was austere and tense, emphasising the religious nature of the evening.
Highlights included Les Oiseaux et les Sources, with the detail of real bird song. Apparently Messiaen could sometimes be seen creeping about in parks with a notebook, to capture birdsong before taperecorders. This piece perhaps illustrates the differences between the composers - Bach formal, Lutheran, expressing an emotional response to his religion, Messiaen free, Catholic, seeking to explain the incomprehensible, and using the fine detail of the familiar to lead his listeners to the unfamiliar and mysterious. They are linked by their passion, their religion and the musical timeline. Messaien plays with structure, referencing plainsong and Hindu rhythms as well as natural sounds, in the way that modern poets can hint at the formal structures of classical poetry, without being bound by them. If Bach is John Donne, then Messiaen might be TS Eliot, flitting from one structure to another. Essentially the pairing of Bach and Messiaen steers us from the familiar to the unfamiliar much as Messiaen within Liturgy would seem, or as Messiaen does within his own music - we can enjoy his wilder passages knowing that resolution will come.
The concert rose to a crescendo, with Messiaen's Le Vent de l'Esprit (The Wind of the Spirit) which tore through the Cathedral with trademark power and resplendent discords. Finally Bach's Komm Gott, Schöpfer felt like the voluntary to the concert, leaving the audience refreshed and resulting in enormous applause. Some of the audience watched Weir on a videolink, showing her fingers, and occasionally her feet darting about. Personally I felt it was unnecessary - you can hear how nimble she is - but it did provide another dimension to the evening. And when you have someone as fabulous as Gillian Weir visiting you do want to soak up as much of the evening as you can.
Jen Pawsey
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29th May 2008 From the Liverpool Daily Post:
Dame Gillian's performance was, as always, utterly impeccable. She made the cathdral organ speak.
From crashing dissoance to sublimely restful, introspective, quiet moments, Messiaen has to be one of
the most cerebral composers.
This performance brought all the excellence of that supreme
musical mind to the fore. Dame Gillian's return is keenly awaited."
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13th June 2008 From the Westdeutscher Zeitung (Wuppertal):
The full potential of the powerful Stadthallen organ is only really revealed in the performance of a true master. In the final concert of the
"Organ Accent" series this master was found: Gillian Weir captivated from the first to the last moment of her performance, transporting even the inexperienced listener on a journey of musical discovery.
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10th July 2008 from the Hereford Times:
Limitless artistry
The second of Hereford Cathedral's Gala Organ Concerts was given on Tuesday evening by the world-renowned organist Dame Gillian Weir.
Without question it ranked among the greatest performances I have ever experienced in a long career. The unconventional programme was intriguing. It opened with William Matthias's virtuosic
Variations on a Welsh Hymn Tune, after which Dame Gillian enthralled us with engaging works by Sweelinck, Liszt, Messiaen, Duruflé, Widor and Eben. Most enchanting was probably Messaien's Chants
d'oiseaux, in which the massive Willis instrument was transformed into a veritable aviary of delicate twitterings, cacklings and boomings. Most brilliant was the staggering bravura of the Moto
Ostinato and Finale from Czech composer Petr Eben's Sunday Music which ended the recital.
Dame Gillian's achievement was technically staggering. I don't know what the equivalent of finger legato is when referring to the feet or to shifting from manual to manual, but the way she applied
it was miraculous. The range of colours was spectacular and the subtle transitions between them magical. Never before have I heard an organ recital come close to sounding like this. And that is
only the technical aspects. Musically it was exemplary. Where required her performance was tender, dramatic, soothing and hair-raising.
At the end of her engaging pre-concert interview with fellow recitalist in the series Peter Dyke, someone asked Dame Gillian whether the organ's mechanical nature allows musical expression. Her
verbal answer was gracious: it's all in the phrasing. Her musical answer was an emphatic demonstration of limitless artistry. John Rushby-Smith
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17th July 2008 from Telegraph.co.uk:
Classical review: Gillian Weir plays Messiaen
Ivan Hewett reviews organist Gillian Weir at Westminster Abbey
Can one have too much of the music of Olivier Messiaen? Yes, yes, say many of my musical friends, clutching their heads at the thought of all those deafening gongs and brass, those twittering bird-songs and those soupy harmonies.
The prospect of a whole year of Messiaen celebrations, promoted by the South Bank Centre to celebrate the great man’s centenary did not fill them with joy, and I was dubious myself.
But as it’s turned out, joy is exactly what the series has brought me – including the joy of discovery.
This has been especially true of the organ recitals, even more so the ones given over to the little-known later works of the Fifties and Sixties.
Dame Gillian Weir, doyenne of British organists, played one of these at Westminster Abbey.
This was the Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, a series of nine pieces interspersed by plainsong sung by four of the abbey’s male singers. It’s a long listen at around 80 minutes, and the seats in the abbey are not kind to the human frame.
But everyone was entranced, sitting stock-still while the evening sunshine slowly wheeled around the abbey’s high arches.
What was so entrancing was the combination of naivety and sophistication. In one piece, Messiaen spells out sacred words in a musical code in the organist’s left hand, while the right hand lets forth a cascade of birdsong. In another he represents God’s simplicity by having the hands move towards each other, like a fan folding.
Often, the organist repeated the plainchant melody we’d just heard from the choir, harmonised with massive dissonances and which suddenly melted into a pure major chord.
Dame Gillian knows this piece better than anybody, having given the British premiere in 1972 from the composer’s manuscript.
Messiaen thought of music as a cascade of colour, and finding equivalents for the sound of his own Paris organ on the very different abbey organ, is half the battle in bringing his music to life.
Gillian Weir has a genius for this; but she can also play plainchant in such a way that it seems to speak as well as sing, and she makes Messiaen’s tangled counterpoint brilliantly clear.
The way she moulded the closing bars of the sublime eighth movement made us feel, just for a moment, that the music really was giving a glimpse of the hereafter.
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Spotlight: Olivier Messiaen 2008
October 2007
2008 marks the centenary of the birth of organist and composer Olivier Messiaen,
whose works have been a vital part of Dame Gillian's repertoire for over 40 years.
Beginning with a stunning performance of Combat de la mort et de la vie from Les Corps glorieux,
which secured the 1964 St Albans competition,
to the British première of
Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte
Trinité from the composer's own manuscript,
her public recitals
and recordings of Messiaen have consistently been definitive performances.
As was said of her recordings (BBC Music Magazine, Best CDs of 1994),
“This is a Messiaen cycle that should now enter the shelves of every devotee of his music as a preferred version”
and, of the re-release under the Priory label which includes additional works published posthumously
to make a truly complete intégrale,
“Gillian Weir's cycle remains the best of all, and she, playing the marvellous Frobenius instrument at Århus,
brings that special spaciousness and intensity to the
Livre that distinguishes her cycle as a whole... It is, quite simply, one of the finest organ recordings ever made.”
(Gramophone, October 2004 Awards Issue).
Is Messiaen unfamiliar to you? To gain a greater appreciation and understanding of the music
there are a number of
previous articles and interviews are captured on this site, as well as numerous reviews of the
recordings.
En souvenir is a reflection of Messiaen's life written by Gillian Weir
after his passing in 1992;
Transports de joie discusses his music after the recordings
were made in Århus.
Reviews of the fully complete works (and some audio samples) are to be found on the
discography section.
The following public performances and classes in 2008 will feature works by Messiaen:
- January 30, Stanford University, USA: Messiaen recital - An overview of Messiaen's organ music
- February 10, Peabody Conservatory, USA: Recital including Messe de la Pentecôte
- April 8-9, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas USA: Performance of Messe de la
Pentecôte and masterclass
- May 11, Durham Cathedral on Pentecost: Messe de la Pentecôte
- May 14, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral: various works of Messiaen
- May 17, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, England: Messe de la Pentecôte interspersed
with liturgical works by Bach connected with the Mass
- May 24, Newbury Festival - St Nicolas Church, Newbury, Berkshire, England: Organ
works of Messiaen interspersed with related works by other composers
- June 4, Haderslev Cathedral, Denmark: recital of organ works
- June 21, St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney: St Magnus festival - Messiaen and Bach
recital
- June 23, St Chads Birmingham: complete performance of the Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité, closing concert of the Messiaen 2008 International Centenary Conference
- July 12, London - venue to be announced: masterclass on Messiaen organ works
- July 15, London: Opening recital of the South Bank Messiaen Festival at Westminster Abbey,
performing
Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité
- July 18, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany: Various organ works
- July 25, Helligaandskirken, Copenhagen, Denmark: Various organ works
- July 31, Viborg Cathedral, Viborg, Denmark: Various organ works
- August 2, Rønne, Bornholm, Denmark: various Bach and Messiaen works interleaved
- August 8, Worcester Cathedral: Three Choir Festival - L'Ascension
- September 8, Paderborn Cathedral, Paderborn, Germany: Messiaen recital
- September 12, Stadt-und-Marktkirche St Lamberti, Münster, Westfalen-Lippe: various Messiaen works
- November 4, Durham Cathedral: Complete performance of Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité
- November 23, Woolsey Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA: Messiaen recital
- December 10, Royal Holloway College, Egham, Surrey, England: Messiaen recital
- May 23 2009, Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany: Livre du Saint Sacrement
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Online Music Winner!
April 2007
The winner of the contest regarding the work Six variationen über una tema di Vincent Youmans
on the new Birmingham Symphony Hall CD is Mr. David Young of Frisco, Texas.
Mr. Young,
shown here with Gillian Weir having his celebratory tea,
is himself a former organist, an avid organ music enthusiast and has been a fan of
Gillian Weir for over 35 years.
You can still try to figure out the variations on the contest web page; it will tell you when you
are correct.
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Previous news articles have been moved to the news archive page.
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British concert organist Dame Gillian Weir
is
one of the foremost musicians in the world today.
Combining
natural talent, study and hard work along with
copious amounts of grace, charm, and wit,
she has defined an entirely new role as
an ambassador for the King of Instruments and its music.
Through her
performances with leading orchestras and conductors,
non-stop recital tours,
public television programmes, interviews, recordings and master classes,
Dame Gillian has transformed the image of organist from esoteric musician to beloved celebrity.
Performer, scholar and teacher, she has opened the eyes of the world to the
music of the organ with her extensive travels and tours throughout Europe, North America, Australasia, and Japan.
Go to bio...
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