Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

Started by bhodges, January 03, 2008, 09:35:19 AM

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UB

There is an excellent concert of his music on Radio France that includes Chronochromie available on demand for the next 6 days. Boulez leads the Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Paris.
I am not in the entertainment business. Harrison Birtwistle 2010

Luke

FWIW, a couple of interesting Messiaen discs that have come to me in recent months:



contains the complete ondes Martenot sextet La Fête des Belles Eaux (including the prototype for the 5th movement of the Quartet for the End of Time, and it sounds glorious in its original scoring here, better than I've heard before). The piece as a whole is usually rather maligned, but it has some startling moments and is well worth hearing. There are also the late Feuilles Inedits for ondes and piano. A beautiful extra is an arrangement of the first movement of the Ravel Quartet for ondes ensemble - sounds heretical, I know, but apparently Ravel heard this and others of his works performed in this way and was very impressed, going so far as to say that this is how the music had always sounded in his head....



Carrying the all-important Loriod seal of approval (and her participation, too!) Some real rarities here, including some pieces I hadn't even heard of, such as a work for chorus and orchestra, from 1945, the Chant des Deportes. It's not very good, to be honest, it's easy to see why he wasn't happy with it, but it's good to hear it. Great to hear La Mort de Nombre, in particular....and there are nice little bonbons such as a Mozart pastiche for clarinet and piano

karlhenning


Guido

Is it sacrilege to say that I love the individual movements of the Quartet for the End of Time more than the sum of its parts? I always find the whole thing curiously disappointing compared to his other major works, but I'll often listen to the excerpted movements. Surely a major part of its appeal is the biographical elements.
Geologist.

The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

John Copeland

Quote from: Luke on April 15, 2010, 12:47:33 AM
FWIW, a couple of interesting Messiaen discs that have come to me in recent months:



contains the complete ondes Martenot sextet La Fête des Belles Eaux (including the prototype for the 5th movement of the Quartet for the End of Time, and it sounds glorious in its original scoring here, better than I've heard before). The piece as a whole is usually rather maligned, but it has some startling moments and is well worth hearing. There are also the late Feuilles Inedits for ondes and piano. A beautiful extra is an arrangement of the first movement of the Ravel Quartet for ondes ensemble - sounds heretical, I know, but apparently Ravel heard this and others of his works performed in this way and was very impressed, going so far as to say that this is how the music had always sounded in his head....

I have never been a fan of Messiaen, because I just...well, it's just I didn't meet him because I didn't like the sound of him.  :(
Aye, things change for sure.   :)  I am listening to that La Fête des Belles Eaux above at the moment as I write, and it has a nice capacity to upset my spiritual sensibilities.  Recently, I've been listening to Turangalila, and in the dense fog I can see a light carrier.

lescamil

#85
Has anyone yet mentioned this amazing recording of the Vingt Regards?

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA67351/2

I would consider this one the definitive recording of this epic cycle, and I've heard about 10 different recordings of the cycle (including all of the usual suspects). Everything about Osborne's performance seems to rise above and beyond the others. His pacing is what strikes me the most, though. Messiaen is a composer notorious for extreme crescendos, accelerandos, etc, and Osborne knows just exactly how to meter out these markings, with respect to the overall structure of the work. I would favorably compare his playing to Olivier Latry's performance of the organ works, particularly La Nativité du Seigneur, a work stylistically similar to the Vingt Regards in Messiaen's work list. Both performers use excellent instruments and have excellent technique on display, coupled with a sensitive touch for this amazing repertoire.
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Quote from: toucan on January 25, 2011, 08:46:39 PM
Yes you do, you need the version by Manuel Rosenthal included in this precious box-set from Disques Ades. Manuel Rosenthal was a student of Ravel, this recording therefore is almost as good as a seal of approval by Ravel on Messiaen:


(Another curiosity in this box is a performance of Dutilleux's Metaboles by Jean Martinon).

You will also be delighted to learn the Ruckblick Moderne box-set from Col Legno includes a performance of Chronochromie by Lothar Zagrosek and the Staatsorchester Stuttgart:


(Among other curiosities included in this box, Ives' Unanswered Question and Boulez's Cummings ist der Dichter with Rupert Huber and performances of Ravel, Beat Furrer, Bruno Maderna and Debussy by Michael Stern - the really curious thing about that one being that Michael Stern is Isaac's son.)

And lest the worthy Karl-Anton Rickenbacher feel neglected:


Wow! Every single one of those has got me drooling like a hungry bulldog over my keyboard, as much for the other stuff (Boulez, Maderna etc) as the Messiaen. I wasn't aware of any of them. Modern music box sets sometimes don't appear in UK shops, but I'm surprised that I've never seen the Rickenbacher - his Koch Transfiguration used to be widely available.

Thank you for providing this mountain of info. Oh, my poor beleaguered credit card...  ;D

Coco

C&P'ng here from the listening thread:

listened to: Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux, Preludes, Quatre études de rythme (Yvonne Loriod, piano)

No great Messiaen fan, but the early Preludes (his first published works) are wonderfully sensual — they have as their ancestor both Debussy's fluid pianistic style and emphasis on the individual "sound image", and the elusive and shifting modality of Fauré's last pieces. The later études could be argued to be the progenitor of an entire school of composition — it's a shame that he didn't stay in this mode for long; nothing he did afterwards matches the intellectual density of these pieces.

Mirror Image

I have to admit that Messiaen isn't a composer I listen to very often, which a lot of it comes from his whole idiom. It just all sounds so random, mindless, and heartless to me that I can't find anything remotely interesting in the music to latch onto. He has to be given credit for his attention to color, which is very distinctive, but this isn't enough to hold my interest. He may be regarded as one of the greatest 20th Century composers, but this doesn't necessarily mean I have to agree with it.

Coco

I'm not the greatest fan either, but I think your limits are more self-prescribed than you think.

Mirror Image

Quote from: Coco on May 02, 2011, 06:36:05 PM
I'm not the greatest fan either, but I think your limits are more self-prescribed than you think.

Well we all have our own likes/dislikes, but I just can't get anything out of his music. To my ears, there's nothing that drives his music. It all just seems to be in outer space. Even with a composer like Ligeti, I can hear his intentions as clearly as I can hear the music itself, but with Messiaen I get the impression he had this kid in a candy store mentality to composition which just turns me off.

Scarpia

Quote from: Coco on May 02, 2011, 06:36:05 PM
I'm not the greatest fan either, but I think your limits are more self-prescribed than you think.

I am finding I like his work less and less as his career progresses, his early stuff is the best.

Coco

Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on May 02, 2011, 06:44:03 PM
I am finding I like his work less and less as his career progresses, his early stuff is the best.

Agreed. Vingt Regards, Visions de l'Amen, the Quatuor and the rhythmic études are all great. It's when his music degenerates into series of juxtaposed noisy chords and pretentiously hieratic plodding rhythms that I lose interest.

Scarpia

#93
Quote from: Coco on May 02, 2011, 07:03:10 PM
Agreed. Vingt Regards, Visions de l'Amen, the Quatuor and the rhythmic études are all great. It's when his music degenerates into series of juxtaposed noisy chords and pretentiously hieratic plodding rhythms that I lose interest.

He really jumped the shark when he invented that system where each letter of the alphabet was represented by a certain note or phrase, so he could spell out bible verses in the music.  Just loopy.

Luke

...except that he doesn't use that system all that much, and when he does, it is to create passages of a craggy, unpredictable heiratic grandeur suitable to the text. I don't really have a problem with this, only one element of many in the mix.

I think that to accuse Messiaen, one of the most heart-on-sleeve composers I can think of, especially amongst his contemporaries, of lacking heart, as MI does, is not really comprehensible. There are few other such unabashed, gaudy, unashamed composers in the 20th century. Likewise to accuse him, of all composers, with his carefully devised and (this is so important!) always audible systems, of splurging random notes is very wide of the mark. There are composers to whom these criticisms might apply, but Messiaen is so markedly not one of them that I find it very odd when I read that sort of thing - like describing Brahms as too frivolous, or Boulez as too sentimental

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: Leon on May 03, 2011, 04:43:25 AM
Interesting that these posters refer to Messiaen as "loopy"; "kid in a candy store mentality to composition" or "series of juxtaposed noisy chords and pretentiously hieratic plodding rhythms" - while praising Albert Roussel and Charles Koechlin (both of whom I like) to the high heavens, says much more about these posters than Messiaen (one of the most important and masterful composers of the 20th century, and one whose reputation will remain intact despite silly comments by posters on GMG).

Well, harrumph. I don't much like Messiaen either. I find him often garish, vulgar, and long-winded, and Boulez's description of the Turangalila as "brothel music" seems to me spot on. (I've always said of the Vingt Regards that I would have been satisfied with Dix Regards, or even Deux.) I like some of his work like the Quatuor, the Trois Petites Liturgies, and the Des Canyons, but I rarely turn to this composer for enjoyment.

Then again, I'm not overly impressed by Koechlin either.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

Scarpia

Quote from: Leon on May 03, 2011, 04:43:25 AM
Interesting that these posters refer to Messiaen as "loopy"; "kid in a candy store mentality to composition" or "series of juxtaposed noisy chords and pretentiously hieratic plodding rhythms" - while praising Albert Roussel and Charles Koechlin (both of whom I like) to the high heavens, says much more about these posters than Messiaen (one of the most important and masterful composers of the 20th century, and one whose reputation will remain intact despite silly comments by posters on GMG).

And what does it say, pray tell?

springrite

Quote from: James on May 03, 2011, 05:52:26 AM
.. what kind-of brothel is Boulez going to?

The kind that goes out of business.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Scarpia

#98
Quote from: Leon on May 03, 2011, 06:22:01 AM
That you, and the other members of your anti-Messiaen cabal, apparently choose not to appreciate the difference between saying that you don't happen to care for a composer's music as opposed to making idiotic comments about his process for which you (collectively) demonstrate profound ignorance. 

None of which redounds to your credit, in my book (not that it matters to you, I'm sure).  But, of course, you are perfectly free to voice your opinion, by all means: proceed with confidence!

I hate to interfere with your righteous contempt, but I actually like a fair bit of Messiaen (mostly the earlier stuff, as I mentioned), and I don't recall saying anything terribly critical of him aside from the system of "communicable language" which I referred to above.  But still, useful to know you have contempt for me.   

(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: James on May 03, 2011, 05:52:26 AM
.. what kind-of brothel is Boulez going to? christ what a moronic statement ..

Probably the same one Genet depicted in "Le Balcon." What kind do you go to?
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."