Richibi’s Weblog

common blackbird (turdus merula)

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while we’re on the subject of birdsong,
it would be incorrect not to mention
Olivier Messiaen, the composer I think
to be the most representative of the
late XXth-Century, with the addition,
however, of George Crumb only lately,
whom I blush to say I’d never heard
of till then, a lacuna culturala, as
we say in Italian, of the very
greatest proportions

“Le merle noir“ is Messiaen‘s earliest
work specifically devoted to birds,
his later “Catalogue d’oiseaux“ lists
thirteen birds, and lasts nearly
three hours

listen to “Le merle noir“ first, you’ll
even want to watch it for taking place
in the Église du Bon Secours in Paris,
June 7, 2012, flanked by dour,
though highly decorative, clergy

Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen’s wife, plays
the entire “Catalogue…“, but behind a
detail from Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly
Delights“, which remains throughout
glumly static

if we think of this as music, which
indeed I do do, where are tempi,
where are tonalities, where even are
identifiable repetitions, how do we
define, then, music

this is not an easy proposition

think about it

good luck

Richard