SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Messiaen, Debussy and Le Jeune: Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, (Soprano), Simon Lepper (piano), The Sixteen, Harry Christophers (conductor). Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 9.2.2008 (AO)

Messiaen - Harawi, Cinq Rechants
Debussy - Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans
Claude Le Jeune - Le Printemps, Revoici venir du printemps


The Turangalîla-symphonie, reviewed earlier, is very well known but this excellent South Bank Festival presented a rare opportunity to hear the other two works with which it forms the “Tristan Triology”, putting Turangalîla into context.

Legends connecting love, death and sublimation occur in many cultures. The very title of Harawi comes from a Quechua (Peruvian) saga about lovers united only in death. It occupies a pivotal role in Messiaen’s work because it stands at the cusp between his songs celebrating Christian marriage and the new, transformational sound-world inspired  in part  by his new muse, Yvonne Loriod. It is an amazing tour de force  lasting almost an hour, and a difficult challenge relatively few performers dare to undertake.

Gweneth-Ann Jeffers is perhaps the most experienced Messiaen singer of her generation, as this performance showed. Although the voice type specified should be “grand soprano dramatique”, this is by no means a vehicle for coloratura display. Messiaen was fascinated by the Sacred Dance in The Rite of Spring where the maiden dances herself to death to appease the spirits of the Earth. The text in Harawi involves images like climbing stairs towards the skies and decapitation : Inca pyramids and sacrifice. Jeffer’s brooding, animal-like intensity conveyed the profound power in the music so her notes seemed to grow effortlessly from deep within, quite a feat as the breath control and vocal dexterity needed in this piece is truly formidable.

Doundou Tchil refers to the sound of the anklets Peruvian dancers wear when they perform ritual ceremonies. It becomes the basis of the stunning sequence of songs at the heart of the work. The hypnotic rhythm grows out of onomatopoeic sounds repeated constantly in minor variations. Many sounds are like primitive cries, “Ahi! Ahi!” but every now and again recognisable words like “tourbillon” emerge. The whole idea of line disintegrates into a maze of contrasting rhythms. Often the sounds shift so quickly that it almost doesn’t seem humanly possible to sing so fast, but Jeffers has so carefully gauged the pace that she’s fluid and unforced. She was careful to stretch each vowel clearly. Words like “toungou” may not mean much in themselves, but part of the impact is hearing each curve distinctly, no matter how often it repeats.

The rhythms in the piano part are equally complex, so wildly inventive that Messiaen lets them dominate the vocal part at times. Simon Lepper’s long piano solo in Répétition Planétaire was excellent, each note clearly defined even when the rhythms cross over on themselves, silences accentuating the frantic pace elsewhere. The percussive bass evoked the sense that this work is a kind of primeval incantation.

Harawi predates Turangalîla while Cinq Rechants was written a few months later. It’s even more panoramic than Turangalîla. Orpheus, Brangäne, Perseus and Bluebeard appear in a blend of Peruvian chant and medieval troubadour alba. Instead of using another grand orchestra, Messiaen distils its essence into a chaste, tightly written piece for twelve unaccompanied voices. The simplicity is deceptive, for these songs demand an unusually well calibrated vocal balance. Fortunately, Harry Christopher and The Sixteen have what it takes. They negotiate the elaborate tracery of rhythm and counter-rhythm with ease. The music flows between different combinations of voices, and soloists take off in wild, free flight. These are the “rechants” or refrains that give the songs such vitality. Because the composer makes so much of “primitive” sounds like the notorious tk tk tk tk chorus, this isn’t music where singers can rely on beautiful harmonics alone, though again the secret is making every sound lucid. The Sixteen (or twelve thereof) adapt themselves well to the guttural sonorities of the strange abstract text, so different to the mellifluous harmonies of western European tradition.

Messiaen based Cinq Rechants in part on Claude Le Jeune’s sixteenth century song Le Printemps - Revoici venir du printemps. The Sixteen are specialists in early music, so it was a pleasure to hear them perform. Le Jeune’s alternating statements and refrains create a flowing movement, reinforced by unusual note values that seem to disrupt conventional word setting. The appeal to Messiaen was clear. The Sixteen also performed Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans. It’s not often we hear Debussy as a composer of unaccompanied chorus but in the context of this programme and this Festival, it was an excellent choice.

Anne Ozorio