Messiaen - Complete Organ Works Volume 3 - Delphian: DCD34076 - 2 CDs or download

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Bonaventure is utterly compelling and can be heartily recommended. — BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Jun 2008
Catalogue No: DCD34076
Label: Delphian
Length: 1 hour 56 minutes

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Delphian

Special offer ends: 08/05/2024

This release includes a digital booklet

Delphian

Special offer ends: 08/05/2024

Messiaen: Livre du Saint Sacrement, I / 53

Work length15:05

$4.00

$5.20

Michael Bonaventure (organ)

I. Adoro te

Track length4:08

$1.00

$1.30

II. La source de vie

Track length2:47

$1.00

$1.30

III. Le Dieu caché

Track length8:10

$2.00

$2.60

Livre du Saint Sacrement, I / 53, IV. Acte de foi

Work length2:07

$1.00

$1.30

Livre du Saint Sacrement, I / 53

Work length1:39:42

$21.00

$27.20

V. Puer natus est nobis

Track length6:06

$1.00

$1.30

VI. La manne et le Pain de Vie

Track length11:21

$3.00

$3.85

VII. Les ressuscités et la Lumière de Vie

Track length4:27

$1.00

$1.30

VIII. Institution de l'Eucharistie

Track length6:15

$1.00

$1.30

IX. Les ténèbres

Track length4:43

$1.00

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X. La Résurrection du Christ

Track length7:03

$2.00

$2.60

XI. L'apparition du Christ ressuscité à Marie-Madeleine

Track length17:02

$4.00

$5.15

XII. La Transsubstantiation

Track length6:27

$1.00

$1.30

XIII. Les deux murailles d'eau

Track length6:58

$1.00

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XIV. Prière avant la communion

Track length6:32

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XV. La joie de la grâce

Track length5:31

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XVI. Prière après la communion

Track length6:29

$1.00

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XVII. La présence multipliée

Track length2:59

$1.00

$1.30

XVIII. Offrande et Alléluia final

Track length7:49

$2.00

$2.60

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Favourites, Olivier Messiaen

David casts his ear over recordings of Messiaen, and picks out some particular gems.

The seeds for Messiaen's final organ work were sown during an inspirational trip to Israel in 1984. Over the course of the next twelve months, Messiaen found improvisation leading him back to composition after the exhausting labours that had produced his mighty opera Saint François d'Assise.The Livre du Saint Sacrement became Messiaen's grand farewell to his own instrument, and Michael Bonaventure performs it from memory here on the Rieger organ at St Giles' Cathedral, the true acoustic of which preserves the clarity of Messiaen's lines.

Reviews

Proms 2008

Bonaventure is utterly compelling and can be heartily recommended.

2010

Michael Bonaventure's complete Messiaen project (this is Volume 3) returns to St Giles's Cathedral in Edinburgh and its stunning Rieger organ, which dates from 1992.
Messiaen's farewell to the organ, the Livre duSaint Sacrement, was composed in 1984-85 and first performed by Almut Rössler in Detroit in 1986. Messiaen spoke of this Book of the BlessedSacrament as a summation of the experience gained from improvising each Sunday at the Eglise de la Saint-Trinité in Paris, where he was organist for over 60 years. There is no shortage of familiar Messiaenic thumbprints: dislocated ideas, meandering dribbles of plainsong, chirpy birdsong, slow, development-less sudden and spectacular bolts of anger; and those endlessly messy chords that desperately need to resolve.
Playing from memory, Bonaventure takes just under two hours, slightly longer than Olivier Latry at Notre-Dame (DG). Movements 1-4 serve as a prelude or ante-Communion. Movements 5-11 follow events in the life of Jesus, and 12-18 contemplate the mysteries of the Sacrament.
This uneven, over-long piece poses considerable challenges to both player and listener, there being few moments of comfortable repose. The more athletic passages (for example in the Alleluia final – originally entitled 'La Visitation') bounce along with a redeeming joy.
Despite the generous acoustic the Rieger organ is recorded cleanly. It is especially effective in the echo effects in the short fourth movement, 'Acte de Foi'.

June 2014

Michael Bonaventure plays the organ of St Giles', Edinburgh; yet the sound he draws from the instrument is as French as one could wish for.

29th June 2008

The Livre du Saint Sacrement (1986) was Messiaen’s final great cycle for the organ, 18 movements lasting about two hours. The music is elemental, devout, ritualistic, eclectic. Sometimes it seems simple, a tune and shimmering accompaniment, even a single line (as in the third movement, Le Dieu caché). And sometimes it rejoices in a cacophonic chaos of counterpoint (as in movement 13, Les Deux murailles d’eau). It is always direct, however, and utterly sincere. Michael Bonaventure cajoles from the mighty Rieger organ of St Giles’ Cathedral a formidable range of authentically Gallic-sounding colours in his commanding, thrilling and brilliantly executed performance.

27th June 2008

In Michael Bonaventure's performance on the Rieger organ of St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, the work plays for almost two hours. On disc it should be sampled in smaller quantities to appreciate the power of the best of the organ writing. Bonaventure certainly allows the music all the space it needs, but there's also a rhythmic energy to his playing that never allows it to hang fire for too long.

Offer,Messiaen - Complete Organ Works Volume 3

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Favourites, Olivier Messiaen

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