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Messiaen Abime

Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2007-07-09 14:06

In another thread, about vibrato, Grifffinity wrote:

>> I believe [The Abyss of the Birds] is one solo where vibrato ruins the total effect of the music -- but this is just my personal taste.>>

I agree with you -- but I would have liked you to go on to say WHY, exactly.

See, if you limit yourself to saying 'this is just my personal taste', then there is no foothold for anyone else to stand and see the view from where you're speaking. Each of us is entitled to our personal taste, sure; but given that OTHER people DIFFER amongst themselves, it makes sense for us to check out their views in detail in case we're missing something we would consider important had we thought of it. So I want people to provide the details.

Like: one of the qualities of continuous vibrato is that it makes the music to which it is applied more likely to be interpreted as 'personal'. So, suppose you want to evoke something like a sunrise -- as a clarinet piece called 'Alba' that I once heard played in a competition tried to do. Now, because dawns, lakes, countryside scenes and whatnot don't vibrate in our experience, playing the associated music with vibrato may well fail in that respect to evoke sunrise, and call attention rather to the instrumentalist and by extension too much to the perceiver of the scene AS A PERSON.

(I suppose people might do all sorts of things at dawn -- jump up and down, drink beer and hug each other perhaps -- but you're hard put to it to find the DAWN in all that.)

I once saw a respected violin teacher become exasperated with the vibrato of the student playing in his masterclass. He grabbed a picture of a landscape off the wall of the room. "Do you think this is beautiful?" he demanded of the hapless student, thrusting the picture in front of him. "Er, I suppose so," came the reply. "Well, do you think this makes it MORE beautiful?" cried the teacher, waving it up and down at vibrato speed in front of the student's face.

In the case of 'Abime' -- well, I haven't heard Cohler's version, so I'll just say why I myself wouldn't use vibrato in it -- the first and third parts of this piece represent the seeming meaninglessness of the Universe -- the Abyss of the title.

The question, 'Why?' is one that we all have to answer for ourselves in one way or another, and it falls to the clarinet in this movement to ask it; in later movements the violin and cello will provide Messiaen's own answer -- which is of course a religious one.

The second part of Abime is taken up partly by the birds, for whom of course the problem doesn't exist -- they are 'joyeux' in an innocent, unconscious pre-fall sort of way -- and partly by the person of the Angel of the Apocalypse, with his dismissive, sweeping flourishes and terrifying, penetrating F# crescendo.

So, I want in performance to separate the sad resignation, the 'nothing' of the human view of the world in the first and third sections from the violence of the Angel in the second and final sections and the false (to us) gaiety of the birds in the second section. It seems to me that the whole point of our playing in this movement is to juxtapose these three things as clearly as possible, and therefore HIGHLIGHT the nature of the problem.

Certainly continuous vibrato doesn't help me in the first section -- I want a register that is as still as possible as a baseline, to be modulated expressively both in order to take advantage of the sad, falling intervals, and in order to follow Messiaen's indicated nuances. (Loss of the bottom end of the stillness/movement continuum in performance is one of the two gravest disadvantages of continuous vibrato, as I pointed out elsewhere.)

Further, I find that 'slower timescale' changes of timbre through and between notes enable me to do this whilst keeping the 'nothing' atmosphere far more effectively than 'faster timescale', vibratolike heightenings of notes -- though of course it's possible that I might be convinced sometime in the future by hearing a masterly performance that did use such heightenings.

It's possible to have a sort of vibrato-like 'shimmer' in the fortissimo sound of the terrifying 'Angel' music, and I myself find that to be a powerful way to heighten its dramatic impact. (Compare how Messiaen adds trills for both violin and 'cello to the climactic and passionate cl/vn/vc unison melody of movement 7.)

So, make of all that what you will, noticing that none of it need apply to someone who thinks that the POINT of their playing in the piece is to impress people enough on a superficial level for them to be called a 'great player'.

Tony

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