Word: martenot
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Gamier, Messiaen's work, to the composer's own libretto, is on the grandest scale. It lasts five hours and 40 minutes and requires a large chorus and 120-piece orchestra, including extra brass and winds, a large percussion battery and three electronic keyboard instruments called Ondes Martenot. The orchestra is so big that it overflows the pit to envelop both sides of the stage and several boxes. The subject is the spiritual transformation of Francis the man into Francis the saint. "I have chosen Francis," says Messiaen, "because he is the person who most resembles Christ: chaste...
...praying. "You speak with God through music," the angel sings, no doubt voicing Messiaen's own conception of his artistic role. "He will reply to you through music. Let the secrets, the secrets of glory open." As the angel begins to play a heavenly viol, an Ondes Martenot sounds a deceptively ingenuous melody. At once oddly angular but celestially serene, it floats above a soft C major chord in the strings and a wordless chorus. The moment is one of beatific bliss, a close approximation of what one imagines the music of the spheres to sound like...