Review: Jacaranda concludes tribute to Messiaen in Santa Monica

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The ambitious Jacaranda music series concluded its two-season Messiaen centenary tribute at Barnum Hall in Santa Monica on Saturday with the U.S. premiere of the composer’s “Chant des déportés” (Song of the Deported), a work reportedly performed only three times since its 1945 introduction on Radio France.

Though short (it lasts about four minutes), the unwieldy piece requires massive forces. Written quickly in commemoration of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, “Chant des déportés” made for a stupefying sight, with a full orchestra and chorus numbering 185. More a historical document than an example of Messiaen at his most inspired, this posthumously published work was made memorable by the inclusion of high school and college students among the professional musicians — part of Jacaranda’s educational outreach program.

Yet conductor Mark Alan Hilt and company ultimately conveyed the poignancy of the score when they performed it a second time for an enthusiastic audience.

The concert began with the somber “Night Signal,” the first of two brief antiphonal brass fanfares from Toru Takemitsu’s “Signals From Heaven.” Then Amy Fogerson led the Jacaranda Chamber Singers in Arvo Pärt’s lovely “Magnificat” (1987) for small chorus.

Since Pärt shared Messiaen’s interest in ceremonial and liturgical choral music, it was an inspired lead-in to the program’s major Messiaen work, from 1965, “Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum” (And I Expect the Resurrection of the Dead).

Here Hilt explored the composer’s obsession with bird calls and plainsong, drawing a refined blend of sonorities from an orchestra comprising woodwinds, brass and percussion. Hilt observed the composer’s request for a minute of silence between each of the score’s five sections.

Overall, Messiaen’s dazzling, resonating instrumental colors may have been understated in the rather dry Barnum acoustics. Yet the conductor compensated with fine attention to detail.

From Messiaen’s final score for expanded orchestra from 1992, the hourlong “Éclairs sur l’au-delà” (Flashes From the Beyond), Hilt chose to perform one short section, “Abide in Love,” exquisitely rendered in its Los Angeles premiere.

Pianist Gloria Cheng performed another L.A. premiere. In “La Ville d’en-haut” (The City on High), a kind of bird-song concerto for winds, brass and percussion, Cheng’s bright, pointillistic sound was heard to best effect in her solo.

-- Rick Schultz