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Through the lens
An exclusive feature of previously unpublished photographs of Olivier Messiaen and interviews with people who knew him. By Malcolm Crowthers and Brian Morton

‘Expressly for me, Messiaen wore a floor-length psychedelic scarf his wife had made. "He's been playing for services all morning," Yvonne said. "Le Maitre is cold and I need to get him home and warm. You have between now and when I get back with the car to take your picture." I'd come specially from London. I was frantic. I said to Jean Leduc, "Quick, get him down into the street." It was raining. He stood to attention like a soldier. When I clicked, he blinked. I was desperate. I said to Jean, "When I signal, whip his hat off his head!" I focused, then yelled "Maître!" His hat flew off. His hair flew up and suddenly, just for an instant, his face shone with an expression caught forever in what has become an iconic image.' Malcolm Crowthers

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Sure foundations
When a Cambridge college wanted an instrument to support Anglican liturgy, it looked to Switzerland. William McVicker unearths the logic behind this seemingly unusual choice

A clever solution to a
challenging situation: the new
Kuhn organ in Jesus College,
Cambridge. Photo: © Nigel Luckhurst

A new organ at Jesus College, Cambridge, marks the UK debut for Swiss builders Orgelbau Kuhn. The instrument is a clever solution to a challenging situation. It is built on the north side of the chancel, a conventional Anglican position. However, lack of space means that instead of the console being integral to the instrument's façade, it is located instead on the east side of the case. This gives the player aural contact with the choir below, though visual contact is limited. Additionally, it means that the organist is slightly divorced from the organ's sound, although this does not particularly spoil the playing experience. The instrument has two manuals and pedals, mechanical action, slider chests and electric stop action.

It seems extraordinary that, in the space of 15 years, organ building in Britain has effectively made a giant leap from the provision of the stopped diapason to the harmonic flute as one of the foundation stops of the Great division. This has been achieved with only a passing nod in the direction of the clarabella. Should we be worried by this development, or is it part of a natural reaction to the products of the Organ Reform?

Only 20 years ago we were convincing ourselves that there was no such thing as an organ suitable to accompany the Anglican liturgy and that organs from the classic traditions, designed to serve specific repertoires, ought to be good enough to serve that choral heritage. But there has been a strong move away from open-foot voicing techniques and stop-types chosen for maximum colour (Koppel Flute, Quintadena, Holzregal, etc) to the careful grading of stops and colours which achieve maximum blend - a warm, huggable blanket of foundation tone which works well with choral sound. This change in philosophical outlook is embodied in Kuhn's design for the organ in Jesus College Chapel, an instrument with no fewer than nine 8ft foundation stops distributed over two manuals.

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Journey of discovery
As a backdrop to the UK premiere of Luigi Nono's Prometeo, Philip Clark examines how the composer finds an affinity between Renaissance polyphony and serialism

Luigi Nono: his brand of socialism and
his creative spirit opened up new ways of
thinking. Photo: courtesy Southbank Centre

It's the old story - an important composer dies and his reputation takes a nosedive, followed by a revival of interest as the anniversaries begin to roll in. This age-old pattern was certainly the fate that befell the great Italian composer Luigi Nono, who died in 1990.

Nono left this world a disillusioned and rather bitter figure: his aspiration for a socialist society that held art in great esteem was dashed against the Cold Winter of the Thatcher and Reagan years. His belief in the inevitable progress of art flew against a Zeitgeist that valued entertainment over personal expression, required music to fulfil the demands of the market and preferred composers to deliver unquestioning, well-behaved pieces that could be neatly filed away by genre.

With the notable exception of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, whose then artistic director, Richard Steinitz, celebrated the 80th anniversary of Nono's birth in 2004, the composer's message has struggled to assert itself in the UK. So comradely congratulations are due to Southbank Centre, where a major Nono retrospective, currently in progress, will end in May with two performances of his most ambitious multimedia score, Prometeo. As an artistic statement Prometeo - which was first performed in 1984 - represented a summation of Nono's musical and philosophical beliefs and could hardly be less genetic and amenable. It demands huge commitment from everyone who comes near it, performers and listeners alike, while Nono's scoring for electronics, instruments and choral forces flattens genre and challenges our perception of what music is.

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