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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Messiaen: Complete Songs for Soprano & Piano
“…represent the composer at his most intimately personal, conveying tenderness and ardent fire by turns, with often surreal imagery matched by music that shows scant regard for the niceties of a song recital. Ingrid Kappelle comes closest of modern singers to matching Messiaen's ideal, with a full-bodied, powerful voice, whilst her ability to convey the quietest hush is extraordinary. Her ace, though, is Håkon Austbø. He has recorded all of Messiaen's solo piano music, an experience reflected throughout in terms of touch, colour and tempo.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2005 | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Messiaen Edition Volume 1Piano Works, Organ Works & Songs
The long life and passionate, exotic music of Olivier Messiaen are big news in this, the centenary year of his birth. Festivals worldwide are celebrating one of the last century’s greatest composers and his heady blend of a musical language that moves from the rich romanticism of the French organ tradition to the diamond precision of a modernism which hugely influenced the leaders of the postwar avant-garde such as Boulez and Stockhausen. His love of God and nature is everywhere evident in the vast cycles of works such as La Nativité du Seigneur and Vingt Régards sur l’Enfant Jésus, but so is a delight in instrumental virtuosity: he was himself a superb organist and pianist. All of these recordings were critically acclaimed when they first appeared; they have been reissued with extensive notes and full texts for the songs. “No reservations…about Peter Hill's masterly set of the piano music, longheld in esteem by Messiaen-lovers,. Technical control, characterisation, colour, 'clarté': it's all here. Few if any pianists play the first and last movements of Vingt regards so slowly. Few approached his sense of a majestic mystery.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2008 ***** “Throughout‚ Hill limns Messiaen’s heady‚ quasi pantheistic amalgam of rapture and stillness‚ evocation and exultation with illuminating exuberance…Hill is supported by a recording of satisfyingly huge range…In Benjamin Frith, Hill has a duo partner as responsive to Messiaen’s demands for subtlety of colour and delicacy of texture as he is himself.” Gramophone Magazine | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Messiaen - Organ Works
2008 was the centenary of Messiaen’s birth, and this 2 DVD set of a selection of his organ music is a superb introduction for those new to his music and an essential purchase for all organ aficionados. Messiaen wrote in many genres, chamber, orchestral, piano solo, and enriched greatly the organ repertoire of the 20th century. Although Debussy and Ravel influenced his earliest works, orientalism and famously the songs of birds were life long influences and a source of fascination to him) Messiaen became a significant influence upon avant-garde composers such as Boulez and Stockhausen. You can sample Tanke’s approach to Messiaen, which is influenced by his study of Buddhist faith and philosophy, on YouTube (keywords: Tanke and Messiaen). The technology afforded by DVD allows the listener to view from several angles, including underneath the bench to see Messiaen’s ferociously mobile pedal parts at first feet, as it were. Tanke plays the Marcussen organ in St Laurenskirk, Rotterdam. Tanke has recorded the complete organ works of Messiaen for Brilliant Classics on CD, recently reissued in time for Messiaen’s centenary. 'This new set by Willem Tanke is most certainly Messiaenic heaven to me, and has placed the music far closer to my heart than any of the previous sets. This recent release is as close to perfect as I think I will find’ The Organ | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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| |  | Messiaen: Organ Works (Complete)
Willem Tanke (Organ, St. Bavo Basilica, Haarlem) | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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