L'Ascension - Messiaen

Suite: The Invisible City of Kitezh - Rimsky-Korsakov

Danses pour Harpe et Orchestre - Debussy

The Room of Ecstasy, Op 54 - Scriabin

Last Friday's concert in the NCH might be best described as a series of controlled explosions, light and colour becoming ever more dazzling and culminating in Scriabin's superimposition of sensations. Debussy's Danses, for harp and string orchestra, provided a moment of calm, elegantly interpreted by Andreja Malir at the solo harp; but the full orchestra was the star of the night.

Messiaen's L'Ascension is full of unusual orchestral colour but it is used in quite an ascetic way. The explicitly religious titles of the movements are perhaps responsible for the feeling that, as the work proceeds, there is rather too much incense in the air; but it is well known that it is the hermits in the desert that are most subject to temptation and Messiaen at his most ascetic is at his most sensual. Anissimov made this ambiguity clear, but it is hard to believe he was not happier with the pagan nature-worship of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Invisible City of Kitezh. There was no asceticism here but a full-blooded delight in the possibilities of orchestration. The composer did have a strong line to inspire him - old Russian legends meant as much to him as the Irish sagas meant to us at the beginning of this century.

Scriabin wrote a 600-line poem and a pamphlet to accompany his The Poem of Ecstasy and to explain what he meant by the title. To judge by the performance, ecstasy is another word for excitement and Anissimov made sure there was no shortage of that. Messiaen's ecstasy is a private one; Scriabin's ecstasy is a feeling shared by a crowd, magnified by the number of participants but also coarsened. With sabre-like strokes of his baton, the conductor summoned reinforcements of sound in an almost reckless expenditure of energy; it was a thrilling experience.