''Concert à quatre'' (''Concerto for four'') is the final work of the French composer

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

. It is a concerto written for four solo instruments (piano, cello, flute, oboe) and orchestra.

Composition

Messiaen first considered writing an oboe concerto for Heinz Holliger, then a piece for oboe, cello, piano, harp and orchestra on the subject of

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. He had previously only involved the harp in his

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cantatas. In its final form (oboe, cello, piano, flute and orchestra), ''Concert à quatre'' was conceived in 1990 and begun in the summer of 1991. Messiaen worked on it steadily until December of that year. He originally intended the piece to have five movements, but at the beginning of 1992 his decline in health slowed the piece's progress and ultimately prevented him from completing it before his death. As it stands, the work is in four movements, in which Messiaen draws inspiration from

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

, Scarlatti and Rameau as well as from his usual

birdsong Bird vocalization includes both bird calls and bird songs. In non-technical use, bird songs (often simply ''birdsong'') are the bird sounds that are melodious to the human ear. In ornithology and birding, songs (relatively complex vocalization ...

transcriptions. His notes also mention Henri Dutilleux and the orchestration of Ravel's '' Gaspard de la nuit'' by Marius Constant. Of the completed movements, Messiaen's widow, Yvonne Loriod, in conjunction with the composers George Benjamin and Heinz Holliger, orchestrated the second half of the first movement and the whole of the fourth. Messiaen described the latter in the draft score as "completely reviewed - ''good'' in terms of sonority, length and dynamics". Furthermore, Messiaen had intended to include a free meter sequence based on various birdsongs. To write it, Loriod used similar sketches discarded from his opera ''

Saint François d'Assise ''Saint François d'Assise : Scènes Franciscaines'' (English: Franciscan Scenes of Saint Francis of Assisi), or simply ''Saint François d'Assise'', is an opera in three acts and eight scenes by French composer Olivier Messiaen, who was also ...

'' and included them in that last movement.Halbreich, Harry (1995), ''Concert à quatre'' (

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), French liner notes. She also added a chorus of bells from the same source. Messiaen had intended the fifth movement to be a fugue, but as he had not even sketched it, it could not be completed and was thus left out of the final version. It was written for five musicians he felt particularly grateful to: the pianist Yvonne Loriod (his wife), the cellist

Mstislav Rostropovich Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian Cello, cellist and conducting, conductor. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was well known for both inspiring and commissioning new works, which enl ...

, the oboist Heinz Holliger, the flautist Catherine Cantin, and the conductor Myung-Whun Chung. The score was published by

Éditions Alphonse Leduc The Éditions Alphonse Leduc company is a prominent French Music publisher (popular music), music publishing house specializing in classical music. It was created in Paris in 1841. Since January 2014, Leduc is part of the Wise Music Group (for ...

in 2003.List of works by Olivier Messiaen, http://www11.ocn.ne.jp/~messiaen/work_list.html .

Music

The first movement (''Entrée'') is bipartite and juxtaposes several musical ideas: a theme inspired by Susanna's aria ''Venite inginocchiatevi'' in Act 2 of Mozart's ''

Le nozze di Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' (, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna ...

'', birdsong transcriptions (

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as well as birds of

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like the blue-wattled crow, the bush canary and the

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), a call and response of short melodic cells, a section for wind machine, strings and cymbal and two conclusive chords. That sequence is then repeated and amplified in the second part.Griffiths, Paul (1995), ''Concert à quatre'' (

), English liner notes. The second movement is an orchestral transcription of Messiaen's own ''Vocalise'' of 1935. This transcription was written first and was the impetus for the whole work. The third movement (''Cadenza''), as its title suggests, focuses almost exclusively on the four soloists. It features the lyrebird (cello), the musician wren (flute) and the

in dialogue with the Natal robin on pitched percussion. The final completed movement, titled ''Rondeau'', is the longest and most complex. An energetic refrain is followed by a verse which features a wide range of birds including the bellbird, the golden oriole, the

capercaillie ''Tetrao'' is a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily known as capercaillies. They are some of the largest living grouse. Feathers from the bird were used to create the characteristic hat of the bersaglieri, an Italian ace infantry formation. ...

and the black-throated diver amongst many others. That refrain-verse sequence is presented twice. After that comes a free meter section, then a chorus of bells before the refrain is stated one last time. The piece ends on an A Major chord, a key that Messiaen associated with joy.

Premiere

''Concert à Quatre'' was premiered by the dedicatees with the orchestra of the Opéra Bastille in Paris on 26 September 1994. The same forces recorded the work for CD the following day.''Gramophone'' magazine, January 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Concert a quatre Concertante works by Olivier Messiaen 1991 compositions Concertos for multiple instruments Messiaen Concertos completed by others