At the initiative of the Festival de Lanaudière, the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performed this weekend the complete Bird Catalog, by Olivier Messiaen. Divided into four concerts presented at different times of the day and night in the ideal setting of the Fernand-Lindsay amphitheater, the performance was an invitation to festival-goers to refine their sensitivity by listening not only to the concert on stage, but also to that given by the winged inhabitants of the site.
A major figure in twentieth-century music, the composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) began very early on the musical transcription of bird songs. Completed in 1958, lasting almost two hours and thirty minutes, its bird catalog brings together thirteen portraits of birds from the provinces of France composed from their songs. “A rarity in musical literature, all the components of the collection are inspired by nature,” emphasizes Pierre-Laurent Aimard, undisputed specialist in modern music. Catalog of birds, but also of their habitats: preceded by descriptions as rigorous as they are poetic, stuffed with literary annotations, Messiaen’s pieces translate on an aesthetic level the different landscapes and lights in which birds with sublime names evolve (the buzzard variable, scared reed warbler, etc.) to form richly detailed tableaux.
“Although it calls the modern concert hall by the level of precision and dynamic refinement required of its performers, the work does not lend itself to recital, among other things because of its monumental dimensions and its particular dramaturgy. The outdoor presentation is an interesting option to make it known, allowing us to immerse ourselves in the heart of what inspired the composer”, says the one who was once a pupil of Yvonne Loriod, dedicatee of the Catalog and wife of Messiaen. But what is it, concretely, this nature in the heart of which we invite festival-goers to immerse themselves?
A rural landscape
Upstream from the confluence with the Ouareau River, the L’Assomption River meanders south, creating in its successive changes many wetlands in its old beds. Spinned by Chemin Landry, where some vestiges of tobacco cultivation remain, then by Boulevard Base-de-Roc with the curious odonym, it flows a few hundred meters behind the Fernand-Lindsay amphitheater, surrounded by edges of mature mixed forest that a rugged topography seems to have preserved from agricultural exploitation.
From the surrounding woods, Ovenbirds, Black-throated Warblers, Red-eyed Vireos and Eastern Wood-pewees add their songs to those of the European birds immortalized by Messiaen. Present on site early Saturday morning, wildlife biologist Alexandre Nicole observed about twenty generalist and forest species, the latter benefiting from the respectable area of the habitat of the site of the most important classical music festival in Canada. “The surroundings of the amphitheater form a rural environment rather than a natural environment [au sens de nature vierge], due in particular to the proximity of agricultural activity”, specifies the scientist. Difficult, indeed, to forget the human presence in the plain of the Saint-Lawrence, as reminded to the music lovers the punctual irruption of motorized roars and the echoes, Friday evening, of a party not far away.
“Many of the species that sing in the Catalog have seen their population decrease significantly since the time when Messiaen recorded their songs”, deplores Aimard. “As a result, the work acquires a testimonial value, in addition to highlighting the burning topicality of the musical and scientific approach undertaken nearly seventy years ago by the musician-ornithologist”, he continues. . On the documentary level, let us also add that the songs of the birds are transformed over time according to the evolution of their environment, but also according to a taste for novelty which is not the prerogative of humans alone. As such, “a new song from western Canada is currently gaining popularity among white-throated sparrows,” mentions Alexandre Nicole.
“Maintaining wooded areas such as those surrounding the amphitheater is essential to the preservation of biodiversity like that mentioned in the bird catalog. Habitat for resident species, they constitute nesting and resting areas for migratory species, in addition to providing significant ecological services, such as curbing shoreline erosion. However, the “productivity” of these edges cannot be the only argument in favor of their protection, they still have to be found to be beautiful”, maintains the Lanaudois biologist. A reminder to be sensitive, like Messiaen in the past and today through frequenting the bird catalogto the message of “immaterial joy” of the birds.