Messiaen: Cantéyodjayâ

“Bessette walks your ears inside the moving cogs of Messiaen's mosaic structure, where many pianists merely float them along its surface. From the clangourous timpani of resonating strikes at the opening to her responsive treatment of Messiaen's transforming block-chord sequences, this performance has a rare depth of aural perspective. ...reminding us that Cantéyodjayâ is the link between the interlocking cycles inside Vingt Regards and the more fragmented Catalogue d'oiseaux.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2009

“Cantéyodjayâ is one of Messiaen's greatest free-standing keyboard pieces, an extraordinary explosion of rhythmic energy and virtuosity, whose method of arranging ideas like a mosaic opened a new phase in his development. Its power and strength are balanced at the other end of the disc by the biggest of all the solo-piano bird pieces, La Fauvette des Jardins, The Garden Warbler, which is all that Messiaen completed (in 1970) of what might have been another volume of the Catalogue d'Oiseaux. Bessette plays them both with a great deal of understanding…” The Guardian, 3rd July 2009 ***

“Ullen flits with ease between the worlds of the two composers. He brings poetry to both, plenty of flourishes and, for the tottering behemoth towards the end of Cantéyodjayâ, a suitable swagger. If there is the smallest caveat, it is that a little more space could be given to events...Nonetheless, this is a beautifully provocative recital.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2012 ****

“this disc, which wears its concept lightly, offers much thought-provoking pianism. It also alerts us to a conjunction that argues for consonance and lineage in ways that are never pursued beyond the bounds of good musical or historical taste. Beautifully recorded, as ever, from BIS.” MusicWeb International, 24th May 2013

“Hakon Austbo's third volume of Messiaen's Piano Music offers gorgeous sounds in the composer's early, post-Debussyan set of Preludes, plus the wirier exoticism of the four Rhythmic Studies inspired by Papuan native culture and Canteyodjaya-the title of which comes from Indian Karnatic theory of rhythm. Austbo's expertise ideally captures the verve and sweep of Canteyodjaya in particular.” Classic FM Magazine, April 2000

“The intricacies of Stockhausen's Kontrapunkte now seem contrived by the pungent timbral interplay of Zeitmasze still compels - as does David Tudor in the convolutions of Klavierstück VI. Characterful works by Pousseur illumine a now-neglected figure, while those by Berio, Kagel and Nono are among the best of their era. Boulez is represented by grimly determined accounts of the Flute Sonatina and Structures I and by Loriod's formidable Second Sonata - galvanising its violent contrasts with a sweeping intensity.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2006