Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

[Lethevich]

Is it just me, or do the track timings look too long to fit onto a CD for discs 1 and 3?

Edit: oh nm, the back cover image states it's five discs, Amazon made a mistake with the tracklisting.

[Mirror Image]

Is it just me, or do the track timings look too long to fit onto a CD for discs 1 and 3?

Edit: oh nm, the back cover image states it's five discs, Amazon made a mistake with the tracklisting.

Amazon made the same mistake with the Messiaen Edition on Warner. They listed it was 16-CDs when it's actually 18.

[Mirror Image]

Yea .. you're right May,31 2011 - and at that price tag a no brainer really.

[asin]B002USOVSC[/asin]

I'll be picking it up once it comes out. Yes, this is a no-brainer.

[DavidW]

I have rips of that Xenakis set... it is f-ing awesome!!  You won't regret buying it.

[Mirror Image]

I have rips of that Xenakis set... it is f-ing awesome!!  You won't regret buying it.

Cool, haydnguy. I watched an interview of Xenakis on YouTube that sparked some interest in his music. Maybe I can explain this to you, as Sid knows pretty much how I work, I'm good at shooting my mouth off very quickly and completely degrading a composer's music whom I really haven't heard that much by, but when I hear their music I end up liking it and everything that I said in the past kind of becomes a sick joke. My biggest problem is keeping my mouth shut long enough to listen to the music. Like the Second Viennese School of Music for example. I absolutely ripped Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern new assholes because I thought their music was complete nonsense. Now, I love Berg and a lot of Schoenberg, but I'm still working on Webern as his music goes by so quickly that if I'm not attentive I have missed pretty much the whole piece! Anyway, I have my flaws and am constantly working on them, but we are human after all.

[Scarpia]

Have a look here - Muraro is amazing

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FCB7EBD096CA256E

The piece I am talking about is at the bottom, but - depending on your disonance threshold - you might find no 6, an unbelievable (and unbelievaby hard) fugue to your liking. At any rate, it is certanly developmental and drives to an astonishing climax. No 10, the Regard de l'Esprit de joie, is another of these developing, climax-driven ones. Meanwhile the 'Premiere Communion de la Vierge' is an example of Messiaen telling a story - the virgin communing with her unborn child, a very 'internal' piece, literally, which reaches an extraordinary moment in which we hear, low down, the heartbeats of the baby. Hideously kitsch, some might say - but not me. This meant the world to Messiaen, and if played with tenderness and love, it sounds it. This number is particularly beautiful, a slow, quiet, still meditation in B flat major.

I listened to the first half of the Vingt Regards, and your comments have been very helpful.  My original impression still holds, that Messiaen's music is generally static--as though he is taking his idea and rotating it to let you see the different sides of it--but I can see that there is a sense of progression and resolution in some of the pieces.  The fugue you mention (although I'm not sure I would have recognized it as a fugue if weren't described as such in the notes) is a good example. 

In any case, I will continue my exploration of Messiaen (at a snails pass, probably) but it is important to approach him on his own terms.  Actually, reading the notes may be contra-indicated.  I'm reading that certain pieces from the Vingt Regards contain vertical yellow stripes, carmine red, different shades of grayish purple.  I have to train myself to listen to the music and ignore the fact that the guy was clearly unhinged!

[Luke]

Possibly he was! Or, more kindly put, his mind went to places that most people's minds do not visit. I always like composers who are brave enough not only to visit those places but to risk the ridicule of coming back and using the ideas they've learnt in their music - - other composers, already mentioned by me in comparison to Messiaen also share this characteristic: Tippett, Scriabin etc (Scriabin more loopy than most of them, though, not so much brave as simply self-centred, though that bothers me not one jot; a Scriabin who cared about the world around him wouldn't have produced the music of shatteringly precise, nerve-end-romantic interior monologues that he did).

OTOH, I think with the whole music-as-colour phenomenon in Messiaen (and Scriabin, FWIW) we simply have a case of composers who are intensely synaesthetic and who cannot but help have that fact influence their music. That Messiaen was bold enough to actually write the colours into his scores verbally I find endearing and also helpful - where some, more harshly, see it as a foolish self-indulgence, I tend to think that every little scrap helps, and when listening to his music with a score, if a colour is indicate I often at least try to visualise the colour, and how it might relate to the music I'm hearing, if at all.

[snyprrr]

I don't know why, but Messiaen is back on the table. I had my go around with him back when Chung started his Cycle, but, it looks as though Messiaen did not survive some late-'90s Purge. The Amazon reviews reveal people who take their Messiaen seriously, but no one yet seems to have ALL versions of the Big Works. So, can you help me? Here's the basic list:


TURANGALILA SYMPHONY

Chung (DG)
Salonen (CBS)
Wit (Naxos)
Constant (Erato/Apex)
Previn (EMI)
Ozawa (RCA)
Chailly (Decca)
Rattle (EMI)
Vonk (Arabesque?)
Nagano (Teldec)
Le Roux (?)
Tortelier (Chandos)
Fischer (BBC)


'TRANSFIGURATION'

Dorati (Decca)***
De Leeuw (Montaigne)
Cambreling (Hanssler)
Chung (DG)
Rickenbacker (Koch)

'CANYONS/ETOILES'

Salonen (CBS)
Chung (DG)
Constant (Erato/Apex)
De Leeuw (Montaigne)


'ECLAIRS'

Chung (DG)
Porceljin (ABC)
Rattle (EMI)
Cambreling
Wit (Jade)


Ois. Exotiques
Vitrail/Ois.
Ville/Haut
Colors/Celestial City
Chronochromie
Et Exspecto***

Salonen
Boulez
De Leeuw
Rickenbacker

ok,... I'm getting tired here !!,... for these smaller pieces, the Chandos/De Leeuw set seems to have 'em all, though, not every piece is a MasterWork. 'Et Exspecto' is the work I'm most interested in, though, I do like the tinkling quality of these pieces. If the sound and performance on the Chandos is 'The One', I'd surely go there. Otherwise, please enlighten me.

Thanks guys!

[snyprrr]

bump

Check out the Messiaen Thread in the Recordings Section.

[DieNacht]

  As regards "Des Canyons ..." it is one of my favourite modern works & I´ve got all the 4 recordings you mention; even though I can´t say to know the recordings in detail, my overall impression is that the differences between them are rather subtle. But I tend to return to the Constant recording again and again; the piano playing is much more varied and yet rythmically intense. My overall impression as regards Loriod is "the earlier the recording, the better the result"; my version is the LP one, don´t know the sound quality of the CD transfer.

  An early work not so generally known is the rather touching orchestral piece "Les Offrandes Oubliees" (1931) which should also be included in a Messiaen palette in order to illustrate his development, IMHO.
 
  Have got most of his works, sometimes in several recordings, but not yet enough knowledge to compare that much ...

[snyprrr]

There already is a Messiaen thread.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,5203.240.html

There is also an effort at an exhaustive Messiaen discography (look under "resources"):

http://www.oliviermessiaen.org/messiaen2index.htm

Some of the old Messiaen LP recordings were transferred to CD by Japanese companies. Most interestingly, the great version of Reveil des Oiseaux, Vaclav Neumann conducting, that can be found on HMV-Japan. The rhythm struck by Neumann in that great, evocative, psychologically insightful (insight into the psychology of the birds) and occasionally witty (as when Messiaen renders the strut of certain birds) - is second to none.

That Messiaen Thread leaves something to be desired, frankly!!

I think MirrorImage neds to chime in here!


I know there's someone out there with CDCDCD who will come to my rescue!

  As regards "Des Canyons ..." it is one of my favourite modern works & I´ve got all the 4 recordings you mention; even though I can´t say to know the recordings in detail, my overall impression is that the differences between them are rather subtle. But I tend to return to the Constant recording again and again; the piano playing is much more varied and yet rythmically intense. My overall impression as regards Loriod is "the earlier the recording, the better the result"; my version is the LP one, don´t know the sound quality of the CD transfer.

  An early work not so generally known is the rather touching orchestral piece "Les Offrandes Oubliees" (1931) which should also be included in a Messiaen palette in order to illustrate his development, IMHO.
 
  Have got most of his works, sometimes in several recordings, but not yet enough knowledge to compare that much ...

Please feel free to chime in if you happen to go digging! I'll definitely check out Constant.

[snyprrr]

ok, now no one's going to help me!

I'm looking for the best recordings of his major pieces,... look a couple of Posts up.

thanks

[snyprrr]

ok, now no one's going to help me!

I'm looking for the best recordings of his major pieces,... look a couple of Posts up.

thanks

I'll just say that this isn't the most informative Thread we have here. 13 Pages and really no 'Recordings' talk, and, as you know, that IS the important part!

[snyprrr]

... which recording by Aimard inevitably brings to mind the lovely Yvonne Le Dizes, who like Aimard was a stalwart of theEnsemble Intercontemporain and who recorded Themes et Variations (1932) as well as the Quartet:



If Gidon Kremer is more your type, be my guest:



But if you like the flute better than the violin, take this recent release of an oldie by Wergo, involving one the bizarre Kontarsky brothers, who lloked like traveling salesmen but were into the most advanced music of their time:



Just as Aimard brings Le Dizes to mind, so the Quatuor brings to mind the sprawling Turangalila Symphony. That's because they are the two most famous works of Messiaen's - though perhaps not his best. At least I hope not because they are not my favorites.The recording by Maurice le Roux (1961) is said to be the first recording ever of any music by Messiaen to reach the record stores. Some earlier performances were taped, however, - perhaps were they not releaed till after the Le Roux issue. including the European Premiere by Roger Desormiere (whose recording of Debussy's Pelleas is still as prestigious as it was during my previous post - and a 1951 performance by the inevitable Hans Rosbaud (inevitable if you are into post-World-War II modernism as Rosbaud performed a fair amount of it):




Can't leave the 1940's without mention of the austere Cinq Rechants: what took Messiaen to write them? A nightmare perhpars, were the terrible Saint Bernard warned him of impending doom if he did not suppress his own senses? Luckly during the composition the mild Abbot Suger managed to sneak back in and tell him: it's ok, sensual enjoyment of beauty is a path to divinity: and that led to the more colorful third Rechant:



(No telling what either Suger or the cold fanatic from Clairveaux might have thought of Iannis Xenakis' elemental Nuits: but that's off topic)

ENCORE! ENCORE!!

I'm drooling, haha!!

It's late,... I'll be bach...

[snyprrr]

Unless someone violently disagrees, I'm going to try Nagano in the Turagalila.

'weird ears' on Amazon didn't like it, but everyone else thought it was spectacular.

[Mirror Image]

Unless someone violently disagrees, I'm going to try Nagano in the Turagalila.

'weird ears' on Amazon didn't like it, but everyone else thought it was spectacular.

I own the Nagano, but I haven't heard it yet. Perhaps tonight is the night?

[Mirror Image]

Nagano is a good conductor. Also recommendable, the following CD, which pairs Trois Petites Liturgies, a piece so beautiful you can't believe it was composed, with one of the all around great masterpieces of the XXth century, Reveil des Oiseaux:

I have this recording as well. It's in that big Messiaen box set I bought many months ago. I guess I have some listening to do!

[snyprrr]

I guess I have some listening to do!

Perhaps tonight is the night?

Crikey man! Quit typing!!

[Mirror Image]

Crikey man! Quit typing!!

[Mirror Image]

Just bought this set for $65, which is a great deal: