Favorite Messiaen Orchestral Work

[EigenUser]

Pick three. I made it off of the top of my head. I think I remembered all of them, but there might be one or two I forgot.

EERM, TS, and TPL for me.

[Wanderer]

Would it have been so difficult to write the names correctly? You know, even if you can't type the accents on your keyboard, a little Google search and copy-paste action would do the trick.

Turangalîla gets my vote.

[EigenUser]

Would it have been so difficult to write the names correctly? You know, even if you can't type the accents on your keyboard, a little Google search and copy-paste action would do the trick.

Turangalîla gets my vote.

I know -- I hate not typing the accents. It's easy for me to do (hold down a key and all possible accents come up), but I don't since I'm not sure if they show up correctly for everyone else. They probably do, though.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Good poll.  I chose :  Les offrandes oubliées ; Éclairs sur l'au-delà ; et Trois petites liturgies with Turangalîla following quite close behind.  Just seeing these titles makes me want to hear them and it also makes me realize that Messiaen is now one of my Top Ten composers, though I haven't figured out which composer must pay the price of my fickle affections!

[Ken B]

Timings would help.

[Mirror Image]

Easy vote for me: L'Ascension. The only Messiaen work I've really connected with.

[jochanaan]

Timings would help.

Not for Messiaen.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Timings would help.

[not edward]

Et exspecto and Chronocromie.

Different sides of Messiaen: the apocalyptic and the observer of nature, and both concise in a way his work isn't always.

[EigenUser]

Et exspecto and Chronocromie.

Different sides of Messiaen: the apocalyptic and the observer of nature, and both concise in a way his work isn't always.

Nicely put! I'm currently trying to figure out Chronochromie and I've been flipping through various Messiaen biographies to find information on the piece.

I hate to leave out Oiseaux Exotiques, L'Ascension, Des Canyons aux Etoiles, and Sept Haikai, though.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

 
  Eclairs, but so narrowly. I still remember running across Chronochromie as my very first orchestral Messiaen, and starting off thinking "What is this %^&$?" And really digging it by the end. It's my second pick. L'ascension as it's the perfect little Messiaen starter package.

  Poor Concert à Quatre, looking like a lost child in a police line-up on that list.

[EigenUser]

 
  Eclairs, but so narrowly. I still remember running across Chronochromie as my very first orchestral Messiaen, and starting off thinking "What is this %^&$?" And really digging it by the end. It's my second pick. L'ascension as it's the perfect little Messiaen starter package.

  Poor Concert à Quatre, looking like a lost child in a police line-up on that list.

I still struggle a bit with much of Chronochromie. I don't like the Epode at all.

Eclairs... is a difficult one to judge for me. I always find myself skipping through some 'okay' sections to get to some really good stuff. Kind of like the way I used to eat Lucky Charms cereal when I was little. The cereal part of it was good, but the marshmallows were amazing. I love the ominous 6th movement. And the 3rd movement always makes me smile.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

  Chronochromie always hits me as a rather "condensed" mid-century Messiaen. An explosion of color that gets up and goes before it outstays its welcome.

  I was revisiting Canyons today, and realized something completely trivial gets on my nerves: the wind machine! Whenever it comes in, I have a theater-music moment. Other than that I pretty much love it start to fin.

[EigenUser]

  Chronochromie always hits me as a rather "condensed" mid-century Messiaen. An explosion of color that gets up and goes before it outstays its welcome.

  I was revisiting Canyons today, and realized something completely trivial gets on my nerves: the wind machine! Whenever it comes in, I have a theater-music moment. Other than that I pretty much love it start to fin.

I love the wind machine!

BTW, you might be interested in knowing that this is my text message alert ringtone:
[audio]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/mvid31j0hwo10v9/MessiaenRingtone.mp3[/audio]
(recognize it? I think it sounds like it could be a default iPhone ringtone...)

...and this is my phone call ringtone:
[audio]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/rz6gt516bvuipce/TurangalilaMachine.mp3[/audio]

I Messiaen-ized my phone!

[Fagotterdämmerung]

BTW, you might be interested in knowing that this is my text message alert ringtone:
[audio]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/mvid31j0hwo10v9/MessiaenRingtone.mp3[/audio]
(recognize it? I think it sounds like it could be a default iPhone ringtone...)

...and this is my phone call ringtone:
[audio]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/rz6gt516bvuipce/TurangalilaMachine.mp3[/audio]

I Messiaen-ized my phone!

That's awesome!

"I'm sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but here's a strenuously long religious opera with no love interest and lots of Ondes..."

[Ken B]

Good poll.  I chose :  Les offrandes oubliées ; Éclairs sur l'au-delà ; et Trois petites liturgies with Turangalîla following quite close behind.  Just seeing these titles makes me want to hear them and it also makes me realize that Messiaen is now one of my Top Ten composers, though I haven't figured out which composer must pay the price of my fickle affections!

Liturgies is not an orchestral piece. In this spirit I pick Liturgies, Amen, Regards.
Amen in particular shows a more delicate and less meretricious approach to the orchestra than most of his orchestral pieces.

[EigenUser]

Liturgies is not an orchestral piece. In this spirit I pick Liturgies, Amen, Regards.
Amen in particular shows a more delicate and less meretricious approach to the orchestra than most of his orchestral pieces.

Forgive me for being a wiseguy, but (look to the left of my thumb)...

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Liturgies is not an orchestral piece. In this spirit I pick Liturgies, Amen, Regards.
Amen in particular shows a more delicate and less meretricious approach to the orchestra than most of his orchestral pieces.

Grove categorizes the work as "Vocal Orchestral."  By Ken's line of reasoning (and he really should use more devil emoticons here) LvB's 9th is not orchestral.   

[Ken B]

Grove categorizes the work as "Vocal Orchestral."  By Ken's line of reasoning (and he really should use more devil emoticons here) LvB's 9th is not orchestral.   

ZauberNate, is Faure's Requiem an orchestral piece?

[EigenUser]

ZauberNate, is Faure's Requiem an orchestral piece?

I'd say so. Both orchestral and choral/vocal.

There's obviously some debate, but I usually consider it to be orchestral if it has an orchestra. I suppose we could then argue about what makes up an orchestra, but clearly the Messiaen Liturgies uses a string orchestra (not to mention many other various instruments).

And good point about LvB's 9th, Z7...

Whatever it is, the Liturgies is a great piece!