San Francisco Symphonyy presents an organ recital featuring Paul Jacobs
2015-01-25
Davies Symphony Hall
201 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA
3:00 PM, Sunday, January 25, 2015

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Messiaen: Le Livre du Saint-Sacrement (complete)

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992): Le Livre du Saint-Sacrement (The Book of the Blessed Sacrament) (1984)

[3:04 PM lights down, announcements, comments from Paul Jacobs]

1. [3:08 PM] Adoro Te (I Adore Thee)
2. [3:12 PM] La Source de Vie (The Fountain of Life)
3. [3:14 PM] Le Dieu caché (The Hidden God)
4. [3:20 PM] Acte de Foi (Act of Faith)
5. [3:22 PM] Puer natus est nobis (Unto Us a Child is Born)
6. [3:27 PM] La manne et le Pain de Vie (The Manna and Bread of Life)
7. [3:37 PM] Les ressuscités et la lumière de Vie (The Resurrected and the Light of Life)
8. [3:40 PM] Institution de l'Eucharistie (Institution of the Eucharist)
9. [3:45 PM] Les ténèbres (The Darkness)
10. [3:49 PM] La Résurrection du Christ (The Resurrection of Christ)
11. [3:53 PM] L'apparition du Christ ressuscité à Marie-Madeleine (The Appearance of the Risen Christ to Mary Magdalene)
12. [4:04 PM] La Transsubstantiation (The Transubstantiation)
13. [4:09 PM] Les deux murailles d'eau (The Two Walls of Water)
14. [4:14 PM] Prière avant la communion (Prayer before Communion)
15. [4:18 PM] La joie de la grâce (The Joy of Grace)
16. [4:23 PM] Prière après la communion (Prayer after Communion)
17. [4:30 PM] La Présence multipliée (The Multiplied Presence)
18. [4:33 PM] Offrande et Alléluia final (Offering and final Alleluia)
    [set ends 4:41 PM; applause for a minute or two, then final comments from PJ and done]

• Paul Jacobs: organ.

Got discombobulated and arrived at the venue an hour early, doh! Retraced my steps, then relaxed at Beer Hall for hoppy Nitro Java and a Sour Golden Ale. Two perfectly quaffable pours. Caught up on news headlines, read a Ted Chiang short story, and just relaxed a bit. No point in dwelling on my stupidity; better to celebrate it awhile, then move on as if nothing is amiss. So now it's 2:59 PM, and I sit in Davies Hall waiting for the show to begin.

4:58 PM: seated on an eastbound train. Whew! What a marathon that was. Plenty of bird song segments to draw the attention, and occasional bursts of tone clusters like sunshine flooding through breaks in the clouds on a dark winters day. Kudos to whoever did the lights for today's event, the color progression – blues to purple to red to silvery white to yellow to gold – worked quite well, and served to accentuate the view of the organ pipes quite nicely.

Paul's joke at the end – that it was gratifying to see that we were still present at the end of the performance – was also a welcome bit of levity after the fairly serious introspection of the past hundred minutes. Good stuff!

Stephen Smoliar has posted a promo article and follow-up review for this show, and Sean Martinfield posted a nice Q&A with Jacobs as well.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2015 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2015 event list! ☸ On to the next event!