In Contrast

Noi has gone to Jakarta for the weekend with Rohana and I am eating cheese on bagels this evening. This is no bad thing in that I've been really fancying munching on cheese for quite a while, and bagels are highly rated in this household. Also I was able to play some old favourites at appropriate volumes.

Chief amongst these, two great bits of Messiaen on a 1987 EMI 2 CD set: the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps and the Turangalila-Symphonie. Nice to hear the fine details of the quartet and get a sense of how much sheer power there is in the piece as opposed to just luxuriating in its lush mysticism. And wonderful to be exposed to the sheer ooommmph of the symphony, especially the glorious swooping of the ondes matenot - played by Tristan Murail in the CD version I was listening to, with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Must say, playing the two works side-by-side brought home to me the sheer range of Messiaen, despite the shared elements of their musical language. The Symphonie is, above all, deliriously romantic in the old-fashioned sense - an over-flowing chocolate box of sound; the quartet profoundly astringent, spare, reflective, mystical.