Austbø
and Messiaen
photo: Gérard Chauvière (1988)
Håkon Austbø met Olivier Messiaen for the first time in 1970. He had already
performed several of the composer's pieces and worked with Messiaen's wife,
Yvonne Loriod, who advised Austbø to enter the international Messiaen
Competition at Royan the next year. In preparing for the competition, Austbø
worked at several occasions with the composer not only on his own music but
also on Debussy, Jolivet, Stockhausen. The unanimous jury awarded Austbø the
first prize and his playing during the rounds was very much acclaimed in papers
as Le Monde and Financial Times.
During his whole career, Messiaen's music played an important role in Austbø's
activities. He performed excerpts of the two main cycles of Messiaen, Vingt
Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus and Catalogue d'Oiseaux, on numerous
occasions in many countries. He performed Oiseaux Exotiques, Réveil des
Oiseaux and Turangalîla Symphonie with major orchestras such as the
Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Residentie Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique
de Radio-France, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Bergen Philharmonic and the WDR
Symphonieorchester.
Olivier Messiaen heard Austbø again in 1986 in the Hague and stated the
following:
J'ai assisté récemment à un magnifique
concert de Håkon Austbø, concert dans lequel il a interpreté une grande partie
de mon "Catalogue d'Oiseaux" pour piano seul.
J'ai trouvé là un interprète rêvé pour ma musique. Håkon Austbø a une
magnifique technique, un toucher plein de charme aux timbres variés, et il sait
recréer une athmosphère, un paysage, un chant d'oiseau, avec une intense
poésie. Son jeu a un pouvoir d'envoûtement magique sur l'auditeur, qui se
trouve transporté dans un "ailleurs" aux couleurs féeriques.
In 1988, at the occasion of Messiaen's
80th birthday, Austbø made a CD recording of excerpts from Catalogue
d'Oiseaux. Messiaen consented to be artistic supervisor of this recording
and to pose with Austbø for the cover photo (above). At the same occasion they
made a double interview for Diapason.
In 1991 Austbø performed the entire cycle Vingt Regards after having
worked on the separate pieces since 1969. His performance was a sensation at
Utrecht as well as in Oslo. After Messiaen's death in 1992, he undertook the
recording of the entire piano work for NAXOS. The Vingt Regards
was released in 1994 and immediately acclaimed as a major event (recording of
the month in Gramophone). Classic CD compared all the available recordings of
this work and Austbø's came out as "the lightning lead". In 1998 the Catalogue
d'Oiseaux was released and won the Edison award.
It was followed by the Preludes, the Etudes and the miscellaneous pieces, and
the final disc, including La Fauvette des Jardins, is planned to be
released end 2001.
As this cycle of recordings progressed, Austbø continued to perform Messiaen's
works with orchestras, solo, and in chamber music. A unique project worldwide
was his performance of all Messiaen's works with piano (excluding the orchestra
works) in 8 concerts in Oslo between April, 2000 and April, 2001. Not only the
entire piano solo works were performed, including the Catalogue d'Oiseaux
in two concerts with projections of images from the landscapes that inspired
Messiaen, but also all chamber music works and the complete songs. At this
occasion, the Dutch soprano Ingrid Kappelle undertook the huge task of singing
the entire vocal _uvre of Messiaen, which the two of them recorded for
Brilliant Classics in 2003. Later recordings of Messiaen’s work include Oiseaux
Exotiques with Peter Szilvay (Aurora, 2008) and Visions de l’Amen with Ralph
van Raat (NAXOS, 2012)
Austbø's performance of the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus in New York
in 2000 was a great success, acclaimed by the New York Times.
Equally successful was his performance of the same piece in Tokyo, 2002, where
the Musashino Hall was sold out for months before.
His investigations into Messiaen’s visions
of colours in music led to the research project Messiaen’s
colours in 2012/13 which included performances of colour parts in Trois Petites Liturgies and Vingt Regards.
He has also given numerous masterclasses on Messiaen's music in cities like
Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Oslo and Stockholm. When the Messiaen international
piano competition was resumed in 2000, he was member of the jury presided by
Yvonne Loriod.
