Olivier Messiaen - Visions de l'Amen VII

Visions de l'amen (1943)
pour deux pianos

I. Amen de la création
II. Amen des étoiles, de la planète à l'anneau
III. Amen de l'agonie de Jésus
IV. Amen du désir
V. Amen des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux
VI. Amen de jugement
VII. Amen de la consommation

Maarten Bon & Reinbert de Leeuw

Oliver Messiaen completed Visions de l'amen, for two pianos, in 1943. The previous year he had been released from a German prison camp in Silesia, where he wrote his most famous work, Quartet for The End of Time. Having returned to Paris, he discovered his wife Claire was dying in a hospital. It was under these circumstances that he wrote many of his finest works, including Visions de l'amen. This work's premiere took place on May 10, 1943, in Paris. Messiaen performed along with the piece's dedicatee, Yvonne Loriod. Like most of his works, this one reconciles his devout Roman Catholicism with ecstatic visions of the cosmos and of nature. Without an orchestral palette to paint the enormous chords in different colors, the composer is obliged to find different ways to illustrate the seven different visions represented here in seven movements over the course of about 48 minutes. This level of inventiveness is something that Messiaen handles easily, and there are no points in the work where the methods of presentation become boring or predictable. The first movement, "Amen of the Creation," involves one pianist providing the bell-like accompaniment while the other pianist plays the Amen theme. They are independent of one another. In the second movement, "Amen of the Stars, of the Ringed Planet," the performers are manipulating the music the other is playing, and so on for the rest of the work. No idea repeats.

The premiere of Visions de l'amen included brief program notes by the composer that explained the four meanings of amen. One meaning is one of creating; of saying let it be done. Another meaning is to accept God's will, and a third meaning is to agree to willingly exchange, either between God and his disciple, or between two other parties. The final meaning is to recognize that what is, is eternally. Some listeners may find a few or all of these ideas remote. They are mystical priorities forged in Messiaen's spiritual certainty. Listening to the work itself lends great weight to these ideas, regardless of the listener's personal instincts. Visions de l'amen is not meditative music at all; it is explosive, rhapsodic, and cosmic. There is no single fabric of sound for the listener to focus on to and ponder. It is representative of a pantheon of ideas within a monotheistic framework. Unlike most avant-garde composers of the twentieth century, Messiaen never sounds as though he is feeling around in the dark for an image or an idea or a sound. Like Wagner, he knew exactly what he wanted, and though this is generally regarded as a sure way to make something that already exists, something original emerges. In this respect, a colleague of Messiaen has been quoted before as saying "I wish I could be as sure of anything as Messiaen is of everything." The risk factor that is necessary for any form of art to work is something completely apart from this composer. One might suspect that if no one listened to or liked his music he would not change a thing about it. The reason it works is similar to why Wagner's music dramas work; the pieces are simply too full of well-articulated ideas, blended into a diverse and personal aesthetic cosmology. It may be argued that some of his works are not as good as others, simply too turgid and inward to be communicative, but in the case of Visions de l'amen the marvel of this mystic's inner world is displayed successfully. It is certainly not the way for every artist to approach work or life, but the Messiaenic catalog prevails. [Allmusic.com]