"She's going to play THAT??"

My friend, Melody, was asked to play the organ at the end of a Mass. Our string quartet also performed at this Mass. The Mass was for two women who became nuns that day. The organ is situated in a beautiful chapel of modern design at a convent for nuns near Dubuque, Iowa. It's a Casavant-Freres organ -- a magnificent instrument.

Melody practiced her music before the mass began. She had chosen a piece by Olivier Messiaen, a composer whose music is often quite loud and dissonant. This music is quite different from what the sisters usually hear in their chapel! One of the sisters of the convent heard Melody practicing and said, "Is she going to play THAT?" So, someone approached Melody and said, "Can you play that a little softer?" Melody answered, "I really wouldn't know how to do that."

So, she played the piece at the end of the Mass, as a Postlude. The remaining audience applauded wildly at the conclusion of the music. I was the page turner for Melody. I simply could not believe the complexity of the written music. It was a mass of tone clusters, sharps, sixteenth notes!! How could Melody play such a difficult piece? Well, she had been playing it since college, so she knew it well, she said.

The name of this music is:

L'ascension: III. Transports De Joie D'une Ame Devant La Gloire Du Christ Qui Set La Sienne

(The Transports of Joy of a Soul Who Faces the Glory of God.)

Here is a YouTube video of this same piece, performed by Olivier Latry at Royal Albert Hall during the BBC Proms 2008 season.



Here is the same piece, as played by the composer, Olivier Messiaen: