Couleurs de la Cite Celeste
Couleurs de la Cite Celeste was composed in
1963, and first performed on October 17, 1964 at a concert at the
Donaueschingen Festival under the direction of Pierre Boulez.
These "inner colours" spring from five quotations from
the Apocalypse: Revelations IV, 3; Revelations VIII,6;
Revelations IX,1; Revelations XXI,11; and Revelations XXI,19-20.
The form of the piece depends entirely on colours. The themes,
melodic or rhythmic and the complexes of sounds and timbres
evolve like colours. In their perpetually renewed variations,
there can be found (by analogy) colours that influence their
neighbors, shading down to white, or toned down to black. These
transformations can be compared to the superimposition of plays
enacted on several stages, the simultaneous unfolding of several
different stories that assume and call out for it. Plainsong
Alleluias, Greek and Hindu rhythms, permutations of note-values,
the bird-song of different countries were all collected and used
in this work. All these accumulated materials are placed at the
service of colour and of the combinations of sounds that assume
and call out for it. The sound-colours, in their turn, are a
symbol of the Celestial City and of Him who dwells there. Above
all time, above all place, in a light without light, in a night
without night... That which the Apocalypse, still more terrifying
in its humility than in its visions of glory, describes only in a
blaze of colours... To the song of two New Zealand birds is
opposed "the abyss", with its pedal-notes for the
trombones and the resonance of tam-tams. To the cries of the
Brazilian Araponga is opposed "the coloured ecstasy" of
pedal points. The work ending no differently from the way it
began, but turning on itself like a rose-window of flamboyant and
invisible colours.
- Oliver Messiaen
The recording was made live on November 18th 2004 with the University Of
Kansas Wind Ensemble under the direction of Professor John Lynch with pianist Avguste Antonov. Piano Society is granted permission to host this performance.
