Floretz:
Prélude from l’Enfant noir, Op. 17
Messiaen:
L’ascension – 4 méditations symphoniques
Widor:
Organ Symphony No. 5
Olivier Latry, organ
Royal Festival Hall, 27 February 2014
The
Southbank Centre is showing off its newly refurbished Festival Hall organ in
style with a series of concerts and recitals featuring some big names. Olivier
Latry is perhaps the most celebrated organist among those participating in the
festival. He is organist of Notre Dame, and an accomplished recitalist with a
global following. He is particularly noted for his Messiaen, and the four
movements from L’ascension were
certainly the highlight of this programme. But he’s a versatile player, and
although this was an all-French programme, it was a diverse one too, and showed
off a good range of the renovated instrument’s capabilities.
The
programme opened with an oddity, the Prelude from l’Enfant Noir by Jean-Louis
Floretz, a Parisian organist who died in 2004. The prelude is part of an
unfinished suite inspired by a novel by the French-African author Camara Laye.
Apparently, Floretz studied ethnomusicology, but the ethnographic dimension of
this seemed slightly suspect. A percussive, rhythmically complex accompaniment
is presumably meant to represent African drumming. Over this we hear simple
pentatonic melodies with more than a passing resemblance to various spirituals.
Floretz studied with Messiaen, and like almost every French organ composer of
his generation struggled to escape Messiaen’s overbearing influence, even here,
where we are supposed to be transported far from Paris. It is a fun piece
though, and a good concert opener. It also gave Latry a good opportunity to
show off his nimble fingerwork, and the clarity he can draw, even at loud
volumes, from appropriate register combinations.
Both
the Messiaen and the Widor were performed from memory, quite a feat in itself,
and an indication of Latry’s affinity with this music, which he had no trouble
conveying, even on what must be an unfamiliar instrument to him. Everything
came together in the Messiaen meditations, the precision of Latry’s touch, the
appropriateness of his register combinations, and, most significantly of all, the
sense of pace and precise timing with which he unfolded these works. In the
first movement, long silences separate the individual phrases, and presumably
these were included by Messiaen to accommodate the long decay time in a large
church. Latry kept the gaps, which here were effectively silent in the dry
acoustic of the Festival Hall, but paced the music well to accommodate them.
Elsewhere, Messiaen’s textures are spiky and dissonant, but the clarity of
Latry’s playing ensures equal clarity here. The last movement requires him to
gradually build up the textures by gradually adding in registers, which he did
with a canny ear for colour and timbral weight. A highly accomplished
performance and one that left us wanting more from this composer.
Sadly,
though, there was no more Messiaen on offer. In fact the programming of the
second half was a matter of some contention. Latry came on to the stage before
he played to explain that he had originally planned to perform Stravinsky’s
four-hand piano arrangement of The Rite
of Spring with his wife. But apparently the publisher had blocked the plan
because they did not want this piano version played on the organ. Latry was
clearly very annoyed about this and, rightly I think, described it as a very
petty decision. He rubbed it in a bit by telling us that audiences in America,
where the publisher in question has no jurisdiction, had enjoyed the Latrys’
version. He was valiant enough not to name the publisher, but I’m going to,
it’s Boosey & Hawkes. So what are they up to? Perhaps they fear a deluge of
unauthorised reorchestrations – for tuba quartet or whatever. Even so, the
decision seemed heavy-handed in this case.
Instead
we got Widor’s Fifth Symphony, and after his little tirade it was clear that
Latry’s heart really wasn’t in it. The opening movement was scrappy, with
Latry’s limbs not co-ordinating as they had previously. Much of the quiet music
in the inner movements was uninspired, with pedestrian register choices and
little rubato. The Toccata was good though, more nuanced than we usually hear,
with Latry finding a spare finger or toe at many crucial points to make subtle
but telling register changes. And despite this being a predominantly German
organ, by tradition and design, Latry was able to produce some properly Gallic
sounds for the Widor, mixing the lighter registers to create subtle and
inviting colours and making full use of the swell pedals to shape phrases.
And
to finish – an improvisation. Latry announced that the simple theme he was
using was one that André Marchal had improvised on in 1954 at the inaugural
concert of this instrument. It sounded to me like the theme to Inspector Gadget.
The improvisation itself was a tour de force, episodic and with all the
expected elements, a scherzo opening, a chorale prelude with the theme in the
pedals, a Baroque fugato with four(ish) voices of counterpoint and a toccata
ending. Quite a feat, and a proper workout for the organ too.
