Olivier Messiaen composed his eight-movement Quartet for the End of Time in 1940 while imprisoned in Germany. He drew his inspiration from the Apocalypse written by Saint John the Evangelist, one of the few works he was allowed to keep in the camp. Het Collectif explores this work, never forgetting that it was at the heart of this harsh winter of war, in a context of misfortune, confinement and deprivation, that Messiaen had an angel speak, promising paradise and the end of time... Stalag VIIIa, composed by Tristan Murail, whose title refers to Olivier Messiaen's place of detention in Görlitz in 1940, completes this programme.

‘Enigma’ is the Greek word for ‘riddle’, ‘mystery’, ‘secret’. At the moment of entering or leaving life, there is always a sound: the cry of a newborn baby or the last sigh of a dying person giving up the ghost. Soprano Sarah Aristidou sets out in search of the original sound in this program, which opens with Andreas Tsiartas’s Lamento Turco. The voice emerges from silence in a wordless lament on the vowel ‘A’. The piece ends with a heart-rending, ‘archaic’ scream... Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise also uses the vowel ‘A’ ... In Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, a shepherd sings across the valley: ‘The farther my voice carries, the clearer it comes back to me.’ In Messiaen’s Répétition planétaire, the singer’s call ‘Ahi’ is accompanied by the music of the planets and stars... After visiting music by Wolf and Ravel, the odyssey ends with a work by Jörg Widmann for clarinet, soprano and piano founded on the vowels ‘A’ and ‘O’. Naturally, it is Widmann himself who plays the clarinet part, as he does in Schubert’s Hirt auf dem Felsen, with Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg at the piano.

REVIEWS:

[This] recital is a mixture of the very familiar and the totally unfamiliar, starting on an exotic note with Tsiartas’s lament, an unaccompanied, wordless vocalise that seems quite a workout for the singer. This is followed by Rachmaninoff’s VERY familiar ‘Vocalise’, also beautifully sung[.] The performance here of the lesser-known ‘A-Oo!’ is warmly expressive. Despite its brevity, this is not really a lightweight song. Ms. Aristidou climbs the vocal heights of Schubert’s ‘Shepherd on the Rock’ with aplomb...a radiant performance, with glowing clarinet playing from Jörg Widmann.

The album notes describe the title work, ‘Enigma’, as “the meeting of the wind and the strings of an Aeolian harp [that] creates a mysterious sound, while soprano and pianist improvise on the search for the answer.” It’s formed around a short text by Mr. Gerzeberg based on a Yiddish poem: “The world asks the old question / stars without mystery / disrupted love / as I fell through the clouds / you became faceless”. I’m not going to claim I’ve worked out what it means yet. It certainly IS an enigma—and a very effective introduction to Wolf’s well-loved song. Ms Aristidou’s [rendering of Wolf's "To an Aeolian Harp"] is gorgeously ecstatic and deeply expressive.

Ravel’s Greek song ["Song of the Lentisk Gatherers"] continues the mood of the Wolf in a more introspective vein, as does Schubert’s Chopinesque vocal ‘Nocturne’, with Ms. Aristidou and her accompanist navigating each twist and turn of reflective melody with aplomb. Messiaen’s spiky "L'escalier redit," with its sparkling accompaniment and vocal leaps, brings a definite change to the mood. Clarinetist Widmann wrote and performs in the long (14 minutes), improvisatory closing work, the Sphinx’s sayings and riddles being based entirely on the vowels A and O, representing Alpha and Omega. It ends on a tentative, questioning note.

This recital is a little more “out there” than Carolyn Sampson’s, but I found it riveting, even the decidedly ambitious closing improv. I like the combination of excellent performances of familiar songs with new, unfamiliar works. Kudos to Ms Aristidou and her partners for endeavoring to give us more than just a boilerplate song recital. The recorded sound is, by the way, excellent, with plenty of spaciousness in the otherworldly closing work.

-- American Record Guide

This Mediterranean-inspired album opens with Andreas Tsiartas’s striking Lamento Turco, an increasingly imploring vocal meditation delivered with passion and imagination by Aristidou. Rachmaninov’s oversentimental Vocalise is then dispatched swiftly, before his ‘A-oo!’, a weighty song of yearning.

 

[The] performance [of Schubert's "Shepherd on the Rock"] benefits from Widmann’s bright, glowing sound and an expansive, arch-Romantic approach from Aristidou (whose voice is really terrific).

Aristidou’s approach is fine in the earlier repertoire but really comes to life in newer works, including Messiaen’s ‘Répétition planétaire!’ (from the cycle Harawi), depicting the music of the universe. Gerzenberg shines here, too, layering colours and textures with care and craft. The exotic improvisation ‘Enigma’ works well and does not outstay its welcome.

The move to Wolf’s setting of Mörike’s paean to an Aeolian harp is successful, not least because of the exquisitely judged piano sound. Ravel’s popular Greek song ‘Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques’ is breathtakingly intimate, hazy with sunshine. Schubert’s ‘Nachtstück’ is a touch bland and woolly but redeemed by a luminous rendition of ‘L’escalier redit, gestes du soleil’ (also from Harawi). Widmann’s substantial and otherworldly Sphinxensprüche und Rätselkanons is the perfect close.

This is intriguing and original music making...the performance is tremendously versatile, seductive and white-hot.

-- BBC Music Magazine

On the Shoulders of Giants is the latest album from the renowned cellist Claudio Bohórquez, with works ranging from Schumann to Webern, from Schubert to Messiaen, this album is a journey on the shoulders of musical giants, both in the compositions and in the interpretations. Accompanied by the legendary conductor and pianist Christoph Eschenbach, Bohórquez delivers an extraordinary performance that is a treat for the ears and soul. With his exceptional skill and technique, he explores the depths of the cello's sound, bringing out the unique beauty and emotion of each piece. The album features Schumann's Adagio & Allegro op. 70, a powerful and expressive work that showcases Bohórquez's impeccable bowing and phrasing. The 2 Pieces for Cello and Piano by A. v. Webern are a masterclass in modernist composition, with Bohórquez and Eschenbach expertly navigating the intricate and complex melodies. Schubert's Sonata (Arpeggione) is a true gem of the cello repertoire. Finally, O. Messiaen's Louange à l‘Éternité de Jésus is a beautiful and moving work that showcases the cello's ability to convey deep spiritual emotions.

Not to be missed.

The Naxos roster of fine discs with vocal and other music by Olivier Messiaen is now graced with Harawi, one of the composer’s central works for voice, and the earlier Trois Mélodies, written when the composer was only 22.

Trois Mélodies is Messiaen’s musical response to the death of his mother three years previously, and is full of tender melodic expression and, aside from a passionate climax in the first Pourquoi? and the opening of the last La fiancée perdue, restrained tonalities and dynamics in the piano. The texts of the outer songs were written by Messiaen himself, and the central song is on a poem by his mother. In the booklet notes David McCleery points out the influence of Debussy in Messiaen’s earlier pieces. The pianistic techniques indeed resonate with a longer tradition of French song which also includes composers such as Fauré. Messiaen’s own compositional language is by no means fully formed here, but these beautiful songs are a perfect precursor to one of the most potent song-cycles of the 20 ^th century.

My experiences with Harawi began on the 10th of May 1990, when I had the privilege of seeing it performed live at the IJsbreker in Amsterdam by Yumi Nara and Jay Gottlieb. Their recording appears on the Deutsche Grammophon ‘Complete Edition’, though I am not sure if this is the same version as that with the Accord label, on which I turned out to be less keen than the live performance. Hetna Regitze Bruun and Kristoffer Hyldig are a powerful duo, and Hyldig certainly pulls no punches. Bruun’s voice is recorded if anything with marginally less presence than the piano, but isn’t swamped even through some of the richer textures in the accompaniment, and the balance leaves room for her own dynamic range to reach its full potential without pushing the recording equipment beyond its limits. Listen to the demanding Adieu on track 10 to hear the soprano voice arc over the resonance of the piano in hair-raising style. 
Harawi is a strange mixture of Messiaen’s extravagantly perfumed tonalities, and the Peruvian traditional music which has its visual expression in the striking cover to the published songs. The cycle is part of Messiaen’s ‘Tristan trilogy’, whose members further include the Turangalila-symphonie and Cinq Rechants. The vocal writing occasionally forays into regions unfamiliar to the generally romantic feel of these ‘songs of love and death’, with repetitious, almost instrumental statements such as the Doundou tchil of the fourth song, intended to represent the ankle-bells worn by Peruvian dancers. Messiaen doesn’t stray too far beyond his own more usual idiom however, and gems such as Amour oiseu d’étoile always bring us back to the composer’s familiar sublime magic. The composer’s own texts are not given in the booklet, but almost more usefully, Erik Christensen provides a description and narrative context for each song.

This is a mighty song-cycle, and requires commanding performances from the musicians. The duo in this recording not only rise to the challenge, but excel in communicating its extremes of content, from vast landscape and fauna to folkloristic legend, and more importantly of human emotion. Hetna Regitze Bruun’s range and expressive power is remarkable, and only the coloratura turns which occur in the Répétition planétaire seemed as if they might have been a little less stiff. Harawi is a confrontation, an assault on the senses - involving and rewarding in equal measure, but an exhausting labyrinth nonetheless. Naxos has brought us a world class recording of this seminal vocal repertoire, and at bargain price this is a release not to be missed by Messiaen collectors.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International 

Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony present passionate performances of two rarely recorded masterpieces by Morlot's countryman, French composer Olivier Messiaen. One work celebrates Messiaen’s love for his wife, the other his commitment to his faith. Together they make up an album of sacred and transcendent beauty, showing the two sides of one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. A quarter-century since his passing, Olivier Messiaen stands securely among the major French composers of the 20th century. From a broader perspective, he was one of the most original musicians of any period, the creator of a singular and often astonishing body of work. Adhering to none of the modernist styles or movements in vogue during his lifetime, Messiaen followed his own sensibilities throughout his career, forging a unique musical language out of bird calls, scales and chords of his own invention, rhythms derived from an ancient Hindu treatise, numerical symbols, and a strongly felt affinity between sound and color. The Seattle Symphony is one of America’s leading symphony orchestras and is internationally acclaimed for its innovative programming and extensive recording history. Under the leadership of Music Director Ludovic Morlot since September 2011, the Symphony is heard from September through July by more than 500,000 people through live performances and radio broadcasts. It performs in one of the finest modern concert halls in the world- the acoustically superb Benaroya Hall- in downtown Seattle. Its extensive education and community engagement programs reach over 65,000 children and adults each year. The Seattle Symphony has a deep commitment to new music, commissioning many works by living composers each season. The orchestra has made nearly 150 recordings and has received three Grammy Awards, 23 Grammy nominations, two Emmy Awards and numerous other accolades. In 2014 the Symphony launched its in-house recording label, Seattle Symphony Media.

Livre du Saint-Sacrement (The Book of the Blessed Sacrament) is Messiaen’s last and longest organ work, a thematic cycle based on the sacrament of Communion comprising eighteen movements, many based on his recorded improvisations, arranged into three thematic groups. Hailed for his prodigious technique, vivid interpretive imagination and charismatic showmanship, Paul Jacobs is widely acknowledged for reinvigorating the American organ scene with a fresh performance style and ‘an unbridled joy of music-making’ (Baltimore Sun). He has performed the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in nine-hour marathons in eight American cities.

MESSIAEN: Preludes / 4 Rhythmic Studies / Canteyodjaya

Olivier Messiaen was a towering figure in twentieth-century music, and for many years he considered Les Corps glorieux the favorite of his own works. It is recognized as the pinnacle of his pre-war organ compositions, vividly depicting the themes of resurrection through deeply expressive symbolism, life and death struggles and ecstatic joy. Ten years later the Messe de la Pentecote marked a departure in style, drawing on Messiaen’s liturgical improvisations and crystallizing his latest rhythmic and serial techniques and use of birdsong into a ground-breaking masterpiece. Organist Tom Winpenny is Assistant Master of the Music at St. Albans Cathedral, where he accompanies the daily choral services and directs the Abbey Girls Choir. Previously, he served as sub-organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. He is also musical director of the London Pro Arte Choir. He has broadcast frequently on BBC Radio and featured on American Public Media’s Pipedreams. He was organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, graduating with a music degree, and twice accompanying the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast worldwide. As a soloist, he has performed in the USA, Europe, and throughout Britain. His wide-ranging discography includes music by Mozart, Liszt, John McCabe, and John Joubert.

The organ compositions of Olivier Messiaen firmly established the composer as a figure of 20th century music. This release features his well-known works L’Ascension and Le banquet celeste, along with two pieces which were discovered posthumously in 1997, Offrande au Saint-Sacrement, and Prelude. Organist Tom Winpenny does an outstanding job in these performances, which were recorded at the organ at St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Before he was thirty, Olivier Messiaen had written the work that established his worldwide reputation asa visionary composer for the organ, La Nativité du Seigneur (The Birth of the Saviour). A synthesis of hisinnovatory compositional style, it is rich in colourful harmonies and precisely noted but flexible rhythms,many derived from Hindu tâlas and from the metre of Gregorian chant. This musical commentary on theChristmas story is divided into nine movements evoking timeless grace, beauty, radiance, exhilaration,and majesty. Tom Winpenny is Assistant Master of the Music at St Albans Cathedral, the oldest site ofcontinuous Christian worship in Britain.

These recordings were formerly available as MD&G 3346.

“You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind–a journey into a wondrous land bounded only by imagination…” Although that was an introduction to the strange new world of the classic 1960s television series The Twilight Zone, it came to mind as an equally apt intro to the music of Olivier Messiaen. Although his world isn’t exactly the Twilight Zone’s unfathomable, unpredictable “middle ground between science and superstition”, in his choral music the composer definitely did create his own special, unique, alternately mystifying and frightening, ultimately exhilarating “zone” of sound, a realm of ensemble vocalism that challenges all who will hear.

The Three Liturgies–for female voices, piano, ondes Martenot, celeste, vibraphone, percussion, and string orchestra–is as radical in every aspect as anything today’s composers offer, but at its core there is a passionate heart and a musical purpose beyond merely making noise. You keep listening, not because you’re charmed and comforted–but rather because your senses are so deeply stirred, the familiar conventions of choral sound and rhythmic form and expression so profoundly and movingly redefined.

Long before composers such as Arvo Pärt or György Ligeti became known for works whose rhythmic and harmonic effects sparked descriptions such as “soundscape” and “suspension of time”, there was Messiaen’s motet O sacrum convivium! (1937), which not only embodies those concepts but remains an unforgettably moving, perfect realization of this oft-set sacred text.

Once again we approach the very edge of the boundaries of musical time and space–not to mention the edge of what’s humanly possible, vocally speaking–with the Cinq Rechants (Five Refrains), written for 12 solo voices. The subject is a part of “the myth of Tristan and Isolde”; the music deals in extremes, in all aspects, from dynamics and rhythmic forms to virtuosic vocal technique. You don’t forget this music once you’ve heard it. And fortunately Marcus Creed and his Danish singers and players–along with pianist Marianna Shirinyan and ondes Martenot soloist Thomas Bloch (in the Three Liturgies)–are more than just able advocates for Messiaen’s music: they are musicians of exceptional ability and admirable commitment, who leave no doubt that we are hearing performances that will stand alongside or above any in the catalog.

Whether turned up or at a lower level, the sound is full and vibrant and well-balanced in both the combined choir/instrumental and a cappella pieces. While this program and repertoire may not be for everyone, if you’re a serious choral music fan and you don’t already have these works in your collection, you need to hear this, and this recording most invitingly opens the door.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Named a Concerto Choice in BBC Music Magazine September 2022!

The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and its Music and Artistic Director Jonathan Nott continue their acclaimed series of 20th-century masterpieces on PENTATONE, together with star pianist Francesco Piemontesi, presenting piano concertos by Ravel and Schoenberg alongside Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques. Each of these composers redefined 20th-century music in a highly personal way, and the works recorded here share a connection to the United States which one would perhaps not expect right away from these European master composers. While Ravel and Schoenberg’s piano concertos provide the most original and colourful 20th-century contributions to this genre, Messiaen employs a similar scoring to express his profound reverence for nature in Oiseaux exotiques. These challenging and multifarious scores fit Piemontesi, Nott and the orchestra like a glove.

Francesco Piemontesi is among the most-cherished pianists of our age, and presents the third fruit of his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, having released the acclaimed Schubert - Last Piano Sonatas (2019) and Bach Nostalghia (2021). The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande is one of the world’s most respected orchestras with a vast PENTATONE discography. This is their third release on the label with their Music and Artistic Director Jonathan Nott, after Strauss, Debussy & Ligeti (2018) and the gloriously received Debussy & Schoenberg,Conductor:Pelléas et Mélisande (2021), containing Nott’s new arrangement of Debussy’s opera.

REVIEWS:

Francesco Piemontesi’s musicianship is both deft and searching. Here are stellar interpretations of three very different concerto-type works, ordered into a journey from easier listening to more difficult.

You have to envy the citizens of Geneva, regularly able to hear music-making on this level from their resident orchestra and conductor. Add a pianist in Francesco Piemontesi’s class, and here are stellar interpretations of three very different concerto-type works, ordered into a journey from easier listening to (notionally at least) more difficult.

Ravel was so determined to avoid portentousness in his winsome G major Piano Concerto the first work heard on the disc — that it can easily sound trite in performance. Any such risk vanishes in the presence of Piemontesi’s brand of musicianship, which is at once deft and searching; a special moment is the sequence of trills decorating the melody in the first movement’s cadenza, marvellously judged to sound as if the notes are somehow gliding, rather than stepping from one to the next.

Without any compromising sense of a soft- focus paraphrase, the music is nonetheless delivered with a sureness of touch and purpose that absorbs and, as often as not, beguiles the ear.

--BBC Music (Malcolm Hayes)

The Quatuor pour la fin du temps counts as one of the harrowing musicals heritages of a horrible past history. Messiaen wrote it in 1941 while caught in a German concentration camp, and based the work on resources available. The work, which is more than 50 minutes in length, is a maximum condense on a harrowing musician’s thoughts, composed under psychological pressure, distress and horror, and also out of pure despair. The piece counts as one of the most difficult musical works to play; it needs an enormous amount of concentration and psychological power. “The work,” as Messiaen writes, “is directly inspired by the Revelation of St. John. Its musical language is essentially transcendental, spiritual, catholic. Certain modes, realizing a kind of tonal ubiquity in terms of harmony and melody, draw the listener into a sense of the eternity of space or time. Special rhythms, lying outside any sort of measure, contribute significantly toward the banishment of the concept of time.”

The Sanskrit word "Turangalîla" roughly means "dynamism" and "vitality" - Olivier Messiaen, expert on Indian rhythms, gave this gigantic opus this title and christened it "Hymn to Joy". The Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim is dedicated to this exuberance with general music director Alexander Soddy, who brings over a hundred musicians to the stage: among them the Turangalîla interpreters Tamara Stefanovich and Thomas Bloch. Crazy tempos, rhythms, keys: Messiaen's “love song” is a Dionysian sound frenzy that is second to none. A production by the Musikalische Akademie des Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim e.V. in cooperation with the Nationaltheater Mannheim.