Music: Let the Secrets of Glory Open

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Two major new works elevate the sacred over the profane

In the secular 20th century, the religious impulse that in the past produced such musical masterworks as Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis has been in short supply. Many contemporary composers, it seems, regard themselves as too sophisticated to write frankly sacred music, or are simply unmoved by the realm of doctrine or liturgy. At a time when nothing is too shocking to be put onstage, spirituality has replaced sexuality as the last taboo.

Significant premieres by two of today's leading composers might help to change that attitude, however. In Washington two weeks ago, Mstislav Rostropovich led the National Symphony Orchestra in the eight completed movements of Krzysztof Penderecki's Polish Requiem, a work in progress for vocal quartet and chorus that promises to be a major statement, both musically and politically, when it is finished some time next year. And last week in Paris, Seiji Ozawa presided over the world premiere of Olivier Messiaen's first opera, Saint François d'Assise, which is clearly intended to crown the 75-year-old Messiaen's career.

Despite their radically different compositional styles, Penderecki, 50, and Messiaen have much in common. Both are devout Roman Catholics; their outputs have prominently featured devotional music, notably Penderecki's St. Luke Passion and his Utrenja ("The Entombment of Christ" and the "Resurrection"), and Messiaen's massive piano piece, Vingt Regards sur I'Enfant Jésus, and his work for large chorus and orchestra, La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. Both men are leading composers in their countries, yet each has transcended parochial considerations to become an important international figure. Furthermore, each writes in an immediately identifiable style that is uniquely his own, and neither has significant imitators.

Penderecki has written two operas on religious subjects: The Devils of Loudun (1969) and Paradise Lost (1978), which the composer has called a Sacra Rappresentazione rather than a conventional opera. Paradise Lost, commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, was the victim of a turgid production that obscured the work's many beauties. Messiaen's Saint François—which resembles no other work in the operatic literature as much as it resembles Paradise Lost in its static, quasi-oratorio quality— is more fortunate all around.

Produced in the Paris Opéra's sumptuous Palais Gamier, Messiaen's work, to the composer's own libretto, is on the grandest scale. It lasts five hours and 40 minutes and requires a large chorus and 120-piece orchestra, including extra brass and winds, a large percussion battery and three electronic keyboard instruments called Ondes Martenot. The orchestra is so big that it overflows the pit to envelop both sides of the stage and several boxes. The subject is the spiritual transformation of Francis the man into Francis the saint. "I have chosen Francis," says Messiaen, "because he is the person who most resembles Christ: chaste, humble, poor and bearing the stigmata as a mark of God's approbation."