Messiaen - Meditations sur le Mystere de la Sainte Trinite

Tom Winpenny (organ)

With their unique amalgam of plainchant, birdsong, musically encoded ‘communicable language’, religious symbolism, concentrated counterpoint, intense dissonances and radiant triadic harmonies, the Méditations sur Le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité are indeed one of the most mysterious and fascinating as well as ambitious of all Messiaen’s organ works. They are also the latest in Tom Winpenny’s excellent ongoing survey of the composer’s organ music on the Naxos label, this time at Reykjavík’s magnificent Hallgrímskjirka, on a splendid four-manual instrument by Johannes Klais Orgelbau of Bonn. Winpenny's previous releases have consistently impressed with their single-minded clarity, and this newest disc is just as fine.

Like the earlier Nativité du Seigneur, the Méditations are cast in nine (3 x 3) movements. They originated in a series of improvisations Messiaen gave in November 1967, alternating with spoken homilies on the mysteries of the Trinity at his ‘home’ church of La Trinité in Paris, whose organ had just been rebuilt. The Méditations reached their definitive written form in 1969, and were premiered by Messiaen himself in March 1972 at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Thus although they were conceived, like all Messiaen’s organ works, with the organ of La Trinité very much in mind (its dispositions are detailed at the back of the published score), they made the transition to the international stage from the outset of their public life. The Klais organ heard on this Naxos disc is more ‘Germanic’, less nasal and reedy in the French manner, than most instruments heard in this repertoire, throwing new light on the music while still bringing a remarkable abundance of colour to Messiaen’s dazzling soundworld.

Messiaen manages to draw the listener in to this work from the outset, with its stark opening octaves, the austere two-part counterpoint of its central section ‘spelling out’ the first of a series of texts from St Thomas Aquinas, and a striking sequence of chords suggesting the ‘turning of the stars’, before the grandiose closing bars spell out the word ‘ingendré’ (‘unbegotten’). The second meditation depicts ‘the holiness of Jesus Christ’, plainsong and rich chords alternating with vividly coloured birdsong, the tranquil final section brought to a close by the repeated-note call of the yellowhammer that had served as a ‘cue’ for the preacher of the original 1967 homilies.

Momentum is again built steadily through the sixth to eighth movements. The sixth meditation focuses particularly on the radiance of God as Light; the call of the bulbul (Messiaen’s ‘oiseau de Persépolis’) lends distinctive colour to the seventh (alongside another Aquinas text); and plainsong again opens the eighth, whose increasingly luxuriant but gently spoken harmonisations are associated with the famous psalm text ‘O that I had wings like a dove’, Winpenny again finding an ideally limpid registration for Messiaen’s soft hues.

The final meditation is dramatic and large-scale, reflecting its subject: ‘I am that I am’, as God declared to Moses at the burning bush of Exodus 3. Various strands from the cycle are drawn together in another display of compositional and sonic brilliance, before the whole work again dissolves into tranquil birdsong. Helped by a detailed recording that perhaps lacks the sense of space in Messiaen’s own account but compensates for this with its sense of focus, Winpenny is an unerring guide through this remarkable meditative journey (his own booklet notes are extremely helpful, too). In short, this is an essential disc for all lovers of Messiaen’s music, and a real treat for organ aficionados in documenting the marvelous Reykjavík instrument. Another great addition to Winpenny’s unfolding Messiaen series!

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