Messiaen: Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum

“A fascinating mixture of youthful and mature Messiaen...Messiaen was keen that there should be a sense of power in his music (not to be confused with volume), but, beautifully as it is played, this account of Et exspecto periodically pulls its punches. There is still much to admire, though, especially in the early works.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2012 ***

“even though a recording cannot generate the shattering impact of live performance, Märkl and the Orchestre National de Lyon give the music plenty of expressive room, thereby underlining the beauty of its quiet birdsong and the universalism of its message.” Financial Times, 16th June 2012 ****

“Märkl and the Lyons orchestra tend to bring out more of the work's sobriety than its strangeness...It would be hard to sanitise this music completely, however, and the compelling way in which the rhythmic buoyancy of oriental dance comes into conjunction with Roman Catholic piety in the fourth movement is vividly conveyed.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2012

“These recordings...give us fine and resplendently recorded performances, but the tempos throughout portray Messiaen as a sleep-walking purveyor of hypnotic and grandiose visions. If this is the way you see Messiaen, then fine but the evidence is that the composer himself never intended this music to be given this sort of treatment.” MusicWeb International, July 2012

“Jun Märkl's performance is well paced and carefully shaped and balanced,” The Guardian, 21st June 2012 ***

“Boulez has spoken of his pleasure at performing Messiaen with an orchestra relatively unfamiliar with his music. It sounds as though the Cleveland Orchestra must have enjoyed it too. You would expect them to, perhaps, in such a passage as that in the fourth movement of Et exspecto, where the two superimposed plainchant melodies return together with the noble 'theme of the depths' – it has great splendour, as does the chorale melody of the finale, rising at the end to a satisfyingly palpable fffff. And in this performance of Chronochromie you can hear why Messiaen said that certain pages of it were a double homage to Berlioz and Pierre Schaeffer, the French pioneer of electronic music. In the work's penultimate section, the famous 'Epode' in which 18 string players impersonate different birds, the obvious problems of clarity and precistion are expertly negotiated: the players really seem to enjoy their dawn chorus.
Absoluterhythmic precision and the clarity of colour that comes from meticulous balance are among the other pleasures of these performances.
They make a most satisfying coupling, too. The recordings are excellent: clean but not clinical and ample in range.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“…her playing is nothing short of magnificent – superb range of sonority, rock-sure rhythm, unfailing attention to polyphonic strands, thrilling attack and tender caress in equal measure. … Under her touch there seems to be no such thing as a worn-out harmony or an unmusical one.” Gramophone Magazine (on Yvonne Loriod's piano performances on these CDs)

“Messiaen's own performance of the large organ cycle Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte-Trinité is included amongst the goodies on offer here. …it is thoroughly compulsive listening, and definitive only in that it reveals just how much leeway is permitted. ...Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen's second wife... can be heard on 14 of the 26 works, many of them classic performances. There may be better sounding versions of the Vingt regards, but she is still riveting - the fearsome 'Par Lui tout a été fait' has rarely sounded more exciting.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2005