From Newsday, April 2004

The Episcopal church of Saint Mary the Virgin has a delightfully mystical air about it. Votive candles flicker through garnet- and emerald-colored glass, golden stars gleam down from the soaring, azure vault and a swirling rose window crowns the organ loft. Then there is the penetrating, ambrosial fragrance that sweeps over visitors the moment they cross the threshold.

"It's known as 'Smoky Mary's,' referring, of course, to the incense," joked organist Paul Jacobs as he climbed the creaky stairs to the console alcove. Only 27, Jacobs (no relation to the late pianist of the same name) is one of the youngest faculty members in the Juilliard School's history and incoming chairman of its organ department. The High Church opulence of "Smoky Mary's" will serve as an evocative backdrop when Jacobs performs the complete works for organ of French Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-92) in a nine-hour marathon starting 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

"This is one of the finest pipe organs in the United States," Jacobs said in a hushed tone as he sat down at the 1932 Aeolian-Skinner instrument. "What makes it spectacular is not only the instrument itself, but also the acoustics of this church. To give you an idea, here are some very voluptuous and, dare I say, sensuous sounds."

The young organist's playing lit up St. Mary's 188-foot-long interior with reedy tones of startling brilliance and color. "And when it comes to power …": He leaned into a deep, booming chord whose seismic ripples slowly dissipated as visitors looked up from the nave.

St. Mary's lush, clear acoustics make it an ideal setting for Messiaen's works, which interweave motifs from Gregorian chant, the shimmering harmonies of Debussy and the complex rhythms of Asian music. "There are moments when Messiaen makes time stand absolutely still," Jacobs explained. In "Le Banquet Céleste," for example, 25 measures stretch out over six hypnotic, agonizingly beautiful minutes.

While listeners are free to come and go during the day, the French composer's ecstatic music almost demands the kind of meditative listening experience that Jacobs' marathon offers. Like mystics of many traditions, Messiaen visits gorgeous but terrifying realms, aflame with the shattering radiance that emanates from Moses' face when he comes down from Mount Sinai. The birdsong Messiaen's music so insistently evokes is no mere picturesque twittering, but (in Jacobs' words) a vision of birds as "tremendous, powerful instruments of God and of joy."

Michael Barone, host of the weekly radio show "Pipedreams" (distributed nationally by Minnesota Public Radio), called Jacobs' 2002 Minneapolis traversal of Messiaen's works "transformative" and praised the young organist as "an artist who grips you with his own connection to the music, but also serves as a kind of transparent link between you and the composer."

Jacobs, for his part, stressed his desire to share his love for Messiaen's "transcendent" music. "The most important thing is to move an audience. This is always my ultimate goal—as it should be for any musician."