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Messiaen: Livre du Saint-Sacrement for Organ. Paul Jacobs, organ – Naxos 8.572436-37 (101 minutes).
A prodigiously gifted child, Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was born in Avignon to an English teacher and a French poetess.
At the age of 10 he entered the Paris Conservatoire studying with such eminent composers as Widor, Dupré and Dukas. By the time he left in 1931, Messiaen had won first prizes in counterpoint and fugue, piano accompaniment, music history, organ and improvisations and composition.
The composer enjoyed increasing success throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, but his private life was marred by the mental illness of his wife, who was put in an institution in 1953 and eventually died in 1959.
In 1931 Messiaen was appointed organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris, a post he held for over 60 years, and this long relationship with the instrument was the constant inspiration for his immense organ compositions such as Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus (1944), Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956-58) and Le Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jesus-Christ (1965-69).
Livre du Saint-Sacrement (1984) is Messiaen’s last and longest work for the organ, a thematic cycle based on the Sacrament of Communion comprising 18 movements based on his recorded improvisation and arranged into three thematic groups.
As with many of his other works, each movement is prefaced by Bible verses or quotations from other religious authors, such as St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure.
Organist Paul Jacobs is, maybe, the foremost interpreter of Messiaen’s organ works; he has performed the complete organ oeuvre of the composer in nine-hour marathons in eight American cities, and his rendition of this mammoth piece is nothing short of phenomenal.
Indeed his prodigious technique and vivid imagination allow him to bring to the fore all the dense harmonic textures and the narrative starkness of many of the movements, particularly those pertaining to Christ’s life.
The CD was made available for review by D’Amato Record Shop of 98/99, St John Street, Valletta.