Released from prisoner-of-war camp in 1941, Messiaen was slow to get going again as a composer in occupied Paris. The stimulus he needed came from Yvonne Loriod, who arrived as one of his students and was to become his second wife; almost at once, he wrote Visions de l’Amen (1943) for the two of them to play. Her part, according to his note in the published music, has “the rhythmic difficulties, the bunches of chords, everything concerned with speed, allure, and quality of sound”; while to himself, at the second piano, he allotted “the principal melody, the thematic elements, everything demanding emotion and power.” The two pianos together become a percussion orchestra, akin to the gamelans of Indonesia, to which the music seems to look also in its frequent moments of pentatonic character. Its principal key, A major, was for Messiaen the tonality of luminous blue, of the sky, of Paradise.

From the mystical writer Ernest Hello came the four meanings of “Amen,” which again are outlined in Messiaen’s preface: the Amen uttered by the Creator in creating, the Amen of obedience to the divine will, the Amen of longing for union with God, and the Amen of the eternal consummation of everything in Paradise. These meanings can be associated in turn with the first, third, fourth and last movements, but the fundamental sense of “Amen,” as a gesture of assent, can be felt throughout the work, for the most obvious musical image of assent is the cadence, and the whole cycle is founded on a “theme of Creation,” which is an enlargement of a pentatonic cadence.

The following notes are adapted from the composer’s own.

I. Amen de la Création (“Amen of Creation”). The first piano plays a double rhythmic pedal in carillon style, on non-retrogradable (i.e. palindromic) rhythms. The second piano expresses the theme of Creation. The whole piece is a crescendo.

II. Amen des étoiles, de la planète à l’anneau (“Amen of the stars, of the ringed planet”). The second piano projects the theme of the planets’ dance. There are three developments, then a varied repeat of the planets’ dance.

III. Amen de l’agonie de Jésus (“Amen of the Agony of Jesus”). The form is that of a Greek triad: strophe, antistrophe, epode. Strophe: Jesus alone on the Mount of Olives. Three musical motifs: the Father’s curse on sin, a cry, and a tearing lament on four notes. Antistrophe: the same music, more developed, with the addition of low rhythmic ostinatos suggesting the sounds of gongs and tam tams. Epode: recollection of the theme of Creation. A long silence, broken by pulsations, evokes the suffering of this hour.

IV. Amen du désir (“Amen of Desire”). There are two themes of desire. The first is slow, ecstatic; the second much more vehement. In the coda the two main voices seem to intermingle.

V. Amen des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux (“Amen of the Angels, of the Saints, of Bird Song”). At first the song of the angels and saints is uncomplicated, very pure. Then a middle section on birdsongs requires a more brilliant style of keyboard writing. Following this is a varied reprise of the song of the angels and saints, with a canon in non-retrogradable rhythms on three levels. Brief coda on the birds.

VI. Amen du jugement (“Amen of Judgement”). Three frozen notes, like the bell of evidence.

VII. Amen de la consommation (“Amen of Consummation”). The second piano takes up the theme of Creation and draws from it a long chorale of glory. The first piano, at both extremes of the keyboard together, creates a ceaseless carillon of chords and brilliant, scintillating rhythms, in increasingly crowded rhythmic canons: sapphire, emerald, topaz, jacinth, amethyst, sardonyx—the whole rainbow of precious stones mentioned in the Apocalypse, sounding, jarring, dancing, colouring, and perfuming the light of eternal life.

—Paul Griffiths

Marilyn Nonken is one of the most celebrated champions of the modern repertoire of her generation, known for performances that explore transcendent virtuosity and extremes of musical expression. Upon her 1993 New York debut, she was heralded as "a determined protector of important music" (New York Times). Acclaimed internationally as a soloist, she is also known for her work with Ensemble 21 (of which she is a co-founder) and the Australian ensemble Elision. Composers who have written for her include Milton Babbitt, Pascal Dusapin, Michael Finnissy, Liza Lim, Tristan Murail, and David Rakowski, as well as emerging Americans Jason Eckardt, Laurie San Martin, and David Langanella. She has recorded for New World, Bridge, Mode, Cairos, Lovely Music, Albany, Metier, Divine Art, Innova, CRI, Tzadik, and New Focus; a recent release is Rakowski’s Piano Concerto (Boston Modern Orchestra Project, under Gil Rose,) and upcoming releases include Brian Ferneyhough’s Les Froissements des Ailes de Gabriel and La chute d’Icare (Elision, under Jean DeRoyer), Olivier Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen(with Sarah Rothenberg), and Roger Reynolds's Angel of Death. Her 2009-2010 season highlights include the world premiere of new works written for her by Richard Beaudoin, Elizabeth Hoffman, and David Rakowski; two concerts at The Festival of American Music; and performances of Tristan Murail's Territoires de l'Oubli and Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories.

Marilyn Nonken was a student of David Burge at the Eastman School and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Currently Director of Piano Studies at New York University’s Steinhardt School, she is a Steinway artist.

http://www.marilynnonken.com/

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Sarah Rothenberg, an artist of "power and introspection" (New York Times) and a "prolific and creative thinker" (Wall Street Journal) has an unusual and distinguished career as pianist, artistic director, and writer. Recognized internationally for her innovative programming, performances include Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Washington’s Kennedy Center, London’s Barbican Centre, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), The Menil Collection, Guggenheim Museum, Getty Museum, Library of Congress and leading concert series across the United States. Recordings include Fanny Mendelssohn's Das Jahr (Indie Award Best Solo Classical Recording); Rediscovering the Russian Avant-Garde 1912-1925: Roslavetz, Mosolov, Lourié; Shadows and Fragments: Brahms and Schoenberg. Over 75 premieres include works by Charles Wuorinen, George Tsontakis, Gunther Schuller, Shulamit Ran and, forthcoming, Tobias Picker. Active as a writer, her essays appear in literary, art and music publications, including Threepenny Review, Brick, Conjunctions, Nexus, Tri-Quarterly, Chamber Music, and The Musical Quarterly.

Sarah is Artistic Director of Da Camera of Houston, and was previously co-founder and co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival. She has conceived, directed and performed performances linking music to the visual arts and literature including Marcel Proust's Paris, The Musical World of Thomas Mann, St. Petersburg Legacy (all for Lincoln Center Great Performers and Da Camera of Houston); The Blue Rider: Kandinsky and Music (for Works & Process at the Guggenheim and Miller Theatre, New York) and Chopin in Paris: Epigraph for a Condemned Book (co-commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre, UMS Ann Arbor, Krannert Center for Performing Arts and Da Camera of Houston). She received the French medal of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters in 2000.

Following her graduation from The Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Seymour Lipkin and Mieczeslaw Horszowski, Sarah lived in Paris and studied the music of Messiaen with Yvonne Loriod, who wrote: "Sarah Rothenberg is richly gifted: generous, sensitive, fiery, intelligent. This is a 'Presence' at the piano, a flame between the composer and the public!" Olivier Messiaen wrote, "A magnificent pianist."

http://www.dacamera.com/about/sarah_rothenberg