All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.) See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Horizon 2 - A Tribute To Olivier MessiaenRecorded live at Concertgebouw Amsterdam on 8, 9 November 2007 (Dukas/Van Keulen, Dalbavie, Messiaen, and 13, 14 June 2008 (Zuidam)
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, George Benjamin & Ingo Metzmacher The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra focused extensively on Messiaen in its 2007-8 season. A major musical figure of the 20th-century, Messiaen (1908-1992) created an entirely unique musical oeuvre in which such divergent elements as divinity, as it relates to Catholicism and other doctrines, ornithology and the synaesthetic perception of sound as colour are all interconnected with his innovative rhythmic and harmonic musical language and tonal organisation. As a thinker and teacher, Messiaen carried out groundbreaking work in music during the second half of the century, but his work as a composer has remained unsurpassed. During this special season, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra programmed works not only by Messiaen himself, but also compositions by his musical predecessors, students and disciples, including three premières of works commissioned by the RCO: Geert van Keulen's orchestration of Paul Dukas's La plainte, au loin, du faune…, Marc-André Dalbavie's La source d'un regard (The Source of a Look) and Robert Zuidam's Adam Interludes. With this second release in the Horizon CD series, dedicated to contemporary repertoire, RCO Live has captured this resounding homage to Olivier Messiaen in superb five-channel stereo. “On this dazzling live programme...the highlight is a stunning rendition of Messiaen's "Chronochromie", its darting dabs of sound and animated percussion packed with startling dissonances and dynamic shifts.” The Independent, 8th January 2010 ***** “This disc, vividly played, puts Messiaen in context as teacher and inspiration, and makes an aurally stimulating tribute.” The Observer, 3rd January 2010 “The highlight of the disc...is Benjamin's coruscating account of what is arguably Messiaen's greatest orchestral work, Chronochromie. Its kaleidoscopes of colours and cascades of birdsong are projected with wonderful vehemence by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.” The Guardian, 21st January 2010 **** “These masterly performances under the baton of George Benjamin here provide the focus of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's inventive tribute to the composer, captured live at concerts during his centenary year. A rewarding programme in superb surround-sound.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2010 **** | 
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| |  | Messiaen - Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Messiaen: | Quatuor pour la fin du temps Erich Gruenberg (violin), Gervase de Peyer (clarinet), William Pleeth (cello) & Michel Béroff (piano) Chronochromie for large orchestra BBC Symphony Orchestra, Antal Dorati |
If for many British music students in the early 1960s, modern music ended with Bartók and the neo-classical Stravinsky, the two recordings on this CD disc helped to change all that. Roger Nichols’s note goes on to relate: ‘The story behind the quartet has often been told: its composition in a wash-house in a prisoner-of-war camp in Silesia in 1940, its first performance on 15 January 1941 before an audience of 400 fellow prisoners with a piano whose keys kept sticking, and the audience’s response to the work’s life-affirming properties – “I was never listened to”, the composer said later, “with such attention and understanding”.’ The work treats of ‘the abolition of time itself, something infinitely mysterious and incomprehensible to most philosophers of time, from Plato to Bergson’. In this great recording from 1968, Nichols singles out Gervase de Peyer as supremely equal to his starring role: ‘surely no clarinettist has yet matched his “désolé” tone and phrasing at the start of the third movement solo’. The substantial coupling is the far less accessible Chronochromie, recorded in 1964 and written just four years earlier. This came about through a subvention from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and had the further benefit that Antal Dorati had conducted the work’s stormy Paris première in 1962. Here the BBC SO respond to the considerable challenges with playing of remarkable accuracy, energy and colour: as Nichols says, with repeated listening, the work’s difficulties become beauties. Again, both works are newly transferred and remastered to ART standard at Abbey Road Studios. “Béroff invests Messiaen's piano writing with subtlety, and displays an acute sensitivity to the exotic harmonies. With responsive support from the other performers, this is a moving interpretation of a classic.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2009 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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The Cleveland Orchestra, Pierre Boulez | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Olivier Messiaen - 1908–1992 (100th Anniversary Box Set)
Messiaen: | Turangalila Symphony Jeanne Loriod (ondes martenot) & Michel Béroff (piano) London Symphony Orchestra, André Previn Les Offrandes oubliées (1930) Orchestre de Paris & Ensemble de Percussion de l’Orchestre de Paris, Serge Baudo Chronochromie for large orchestra BBC Symphony Orchestra, Antal Dorati Éclairs sur l'au-delà… Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle Quatuor pour la fin du temps Yvonne Loriod (piano), Christoph Poppen (violin), Manuel Fischer-Dieskau (cello) & Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet) Theme and Variations for Violin and Piano Christoph Poppen (violin) & Yvonne Loriod (piano) Le Merle noir for flute and piano Emmanuel Pahud (flute) Preludes (8) Michel Béroff (piano) Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus Michel Béroff (piano) Visions de l'Amen for 2 pianos Alexandre Rabinovitch & Martha Argerich (pianos) Quatre Études de rythme Michel Béroff (piano) Cantéyodjayâ John Ogdon (piano) Apparition de l'Eglise Eternelle Olivier Messiaen (organ) Le Banquet Céleste Olivier Messiaen (organ) Diptyque Olivier Messiaen (organ) L'Ascension (organ version) Olivier Messiaen (organ) La Nativité du Seigneur Olivier Messiaen (organ) & Naji Hakim (organ) Priere apres la Communion Naji Hakim (organ) Les Corps Glorieux Olivier Messiaen (organ) Messe de la Pentecote Olivier Messiaen (organ) Livre d'Orgue Olivier Messiaen (organ) La Mort Du Nombre Ann Murray (soprano), Philip Langridge (tenor), Andrew Watkinson (violin) & Roger Vignoles (piano) Trois Mélodies Michèle Command (soprano) & Marie-Madeleine Petit (piano) Poèmes pour Mi, books 1 & 2 (complete) Michèle Command (soprano) & Marie-Madeleine Petit (piano) Chants de Terre et de Ciel Michèle Command (soprano) & Marie-Madeleine Petit (piano) Harawi (Chants d'amour et de Mort) Michèle Command (soprano) & Marie-Madeleine Petit (piano) 3 Petites liturgies de la Presence Divine Rolf Hind (piano) & Cynthia Millar (ondes Martenot) London Sinfonietta & London Sinfonietta Chorus, Terry Edwards Cinq rechants Rolf Hind (piano) & Cynthia Millar (ondes Martenot) London Sinfonietta, London Sinfonietta Chorus & London Sinfonietta Voices, Terry Edwards |
Olivier Messiaen was born on 10th December 1908 in Avignon. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire from 1919 to 1930 where his teachers included Paul Dukas and the great organist and improviser Marcel Dupré. He developed a very distinctive style in the music and with his deep Catholic faith and love of birds he created a highly original palette in sound which he employed in works for orchestra, small combination of or merely solo instruments or choir. EMI is celebrating his centenary with a collection of 14CDs. Messiaen himself appears as the organist in four CDs of his solo organ music, recorded in from the earliest work up to and including to his then latest work Livre d’Orgue. These four CDs have been newly remastered at Abbey Road Studios. His wife, Yvonne Loriod, plays the piano in the CD of the Quatuor pour la fin du Temps and his sister-in-law, Jeanne Loriod, plays the ondes-martenot in the Turangalila Symphony with Michel Beroff and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn. Although most works have been issued on CD before some are rare – e.g. 2 CDs of Melodies – and two are making their first appearance in this medium: Quatre etudes de rythme and Cantéyodjâya played by Beroff and Ogdon respectively. This is a fine set to introduce yourself to one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. “…this handsome set from EMI is well worth considering. With works spanning his output, a range of genres and some wonderful performances…” BBC Music Magazine, November 2008 ***** “The 14-CD EMI set is one of the those incredibly useful, disarmingly cheap, EMI completist pull-togethers, this one boasting classic Messiaen moments like Previn's 1977 Turangalîla-Symphonie, Dorati's penetrating 1964 Chronochromie, Rattle's Eclairs sur l'Au-delà, Martha Argerich's and Alexandre Rabinovitch's Visions de l'Amen and Messiaen's own performances of his organ works.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2009 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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