Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano
Olivier Messiaen
Movements from Catalogue d'Oiseaux (The Catalogue of Birds):
Le Chocard des Alpes
L'alouette Calandrelle
Le Traquet Rieur
La Buse Variable
La Rousserolle Effarvate
How can the natural be translated into abstract musical form? This question preoccupied not only this year's music festival composer György Ligeti, but almost simultaneously his French colleague Olivier Messiaen. While Ligeti dealt with the phenomena of cloud formation in "Atmosphères", for example, it was Messiaen's passion for birdcalls that led to several of his most important works. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, an expert on Messiaen like no other, has studied this bird world, domesticated in sound, at length, and admires its radicalism.
"With the birdcalls, Messiaen created an open sound space in which the unexpected can occur," is how the French pianist characterizes this very own microcosm. At the Musikfest, Aimard will now explore the dazzling sound worlds of the "Catalogue d'oiseaux" and interpret the work throughout the day at various listening and performance venues. Almost from a bird's-eye view - on the top floor of the OpernTurm - one can experience the dawn over the city to the sounds of the musically portrayed birds, before Messiaen's music is performed at further stations during the day where birds in the flesh can be heard and observed - and where nature can be experienced: in the bird halls of the Frankfurt Zoo and in the Palmengarten.
Link to Alte Oper: http://www.alteoper.de
Text source and further information about this event: https://www.alteoper.de/de/programm/veranstaltung.php?id=519059661
