Listening to Messiaen’s solo piano masterwork Vingt Re-gards Sur L’enfant Jesus (roughly “Twenty Views of the Infant Jesus”) is a challenge for an audience. The twenty “views” are actually twenty different movements of varying lengths. If played without interruption, it runs over 2 hours. The studious listener can follow with a score card, since each view is quite distinct and full of religious significance (View of the Father, View of the Cross, the View of the Terrible Unction, etc.). One could imagine hours and hours of musical/religious dialogues at Julliard over the structure and meaning of each of its parts. When Christopher Taylor performed Vingt Regards in the grotto on August 28, he somehow made this complex mas-terwork accessible and even embracing. Seated alone on the red sand “stage,” he gave the audience the titles of the move-ments in pairs of two or three and took a break after the first ten. But what was clear from the very first notes was that he was truly one with this music. He played it all by memory, and his entire body was involved in the playing. From the moment he turned from his audience chat back to his instrument, he and the piano were one thing – a powerful embodiment of Messaien’s vision. Never has playing “by heart” been more literally true. The musical styles were all over the map. Sweet and gentle, harsh and demanding, a little jazzy, a pounding agony, and then glorious and uplifting. And in every genre, Taylor was comfortable and confident. He changed with every “view.” And all of this was taking place on a warm afternoon in “nature’s perfect concert hall” – a perfect setting for an intensely spiritual piece of music. As is often the case, the ravens and magpies occasionally helped the music along. But the setting also helped the accessibility of the music. No one was tracking this with a score card – it was the most natural of happenings, washing over listeners, thrilling them with every nuance that a piano can offer. Comfortably chatting with audience members after his virtuoso performance, Taylor seemed like a different person. Warm, engaging, dad of two little girls – not a mathematical and musical genius. Not the person whose incredible talent had just astounded and deeply gratified his audience.

Christopher Taylor on the Rocks

Fall 2008