Messiaen - Piano Music - Hyperion: CDA67054 - CD or download

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Hewitt has few equals in Messiaen. The very early Préludes (Messiaen was studying with Dukas when he wrote them) mightn't seem the ideal repertory in which to demonstrate this, but she plays... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: CDA67054
Label: Hyperion
Length: 75 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Messiaen: Preludes (8)

Work length40:27

$8.80

$12.00

Angela Hewitt (piano)

I. La colombe

Track length2:22

$1.10

$1.50

II. Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste

Track length7:17

$1.10

$1.50

III. Le nombre léger

Track length2:06

$1.10

$1.50

IV. Instants défunts

Track length5:01

$1.10

$1.50

V. Les sons impalpables du rêve

Track length5:08

$1.10

$1.50

VI. Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu

Track length10:13

$1.10

$1.50

VII. Plainte calme

Track length2:55

$1.10

$1.50

VIII. Un reflet dans le vent

Track length5:25

$1.10

$1.50

Excerpt, Messiaen: Quatre Études de rythme

Work length7:14

$2.20

$3.00

Angela Hewitt (piano)

I. Île de feu 1

Track length2:29

$1.10

$1.50

IV. Île fe feu 2

Track length4:45

$1.10

$1.50

Excerpt, Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus

Work length27:59

$3.30

$4.50

Angela Hewitt (piano)

IV. Regard de la Vierge

Track length5:57

$1.10

$1.50

XV. Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus

Track length12:30

$1.10

$1.50

X. Regard de l’Esprit de joie

Track length9:32

$1.10

$1.50

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Angela Hewitt writes The music of Olivier Messiaen immediately attracts our attention with its rhythm, variety of colour, technical brilliance, energy, joy, and spirituality. It is incredibly well written for the instrument, even though its difficulties may deter many a player. Audiences are rarely indifferent to it, and for many it has a very powerful effect. The Preludes were written when Messiaen was about 20 and are remarkable pieces for one so young. They were premiered in 1931. The two 'Islands of Fire' are from his Quatre etudes de rythme from 1950 and are dedicated to Papua New Guinea. Messiaen states that his themes are characterized 'by the violence of the magic rites of that country'. He wrote Vingt Regards ('Twenty Contemplations of the Child Jesus') for his wife Yvonne Loriod. In it he uses the piano like an orchestra, demanding a huge range of dynamics, attacks, and timbres. For this recording my wish was not only to present my favourite works by Messiaen, but also to give the listener an idea of the development of his writingall on a single disc.

Reviews

2010

Hewitt has few equals in Messiaen. The very early Préludes (Messiaen was studying with Dukas when he wrote them) mightn't seem the ideal repertory in which to demonstrate this, but she plays them with exquisitely controlled colour, clarity and eager love for the music. In this performance they're full of luminous shot and shaded colours that are typical of the mature Messiaen, and in the final virtuoso number she seems even to have discovered an early draft for a theme in the Turangalîla Symphony. Her melodic lines are strong, her sonorities rich, but her loud playing is never noisy or forced. She has that crucial quality needed of a Messiaen pianist: patience. Patience to let a chord register and fade, patience never to pre-empt a climax. In the two Îlede feu pieces she shows that she can produce hardedged sonorities as well as subtle ones. And all her gifts as a Messiaen pianist are evident in 'Le baiser de l'Enfant-Jésus': the tempo is patient, the contemplation rapt, the embellishments delicately precise, with a magical change of colour as the sunlit hortus conclusus at the centre of the movement is reached. The recording is finely sensitive to the exceptional beauty of Hewitt's sound.

Messiaen - Piano Music

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