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Olivier Messiaen - 1908–1992 (100th Anniversary Box Set)
Jeanne Loriod (ondes martenot) & Michel Béroff (piano), Yvonne Loriod (piano), Christoph Poppen (violin), Manuel Fischer-Dieskau (cello) & Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet), Christoph Poppen (violin) & Yvonne Loriod (piano), Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Michel Béroff (piano), Alexandre Rabinovitch...
…this handsome set from EMI is well worth considering. With works spanning his output, a range of genres and some wonderful performances…
Olivier Messiaen - 1908–1992 (100th Anniversary Box Set)
Jeanne Loriod (ondes martenot) & Michel Béroff (piano), Yvonne Loriod (piano), Christoph Poppen (violin), Manuel Fischer-Dieskau (cello) & Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet), Christoph Poppen (violin) & Yvonne Loriod (piano), Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Michel Béroff (piano), Alexandre Rabinovitch...
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…this handsome set from EMI is well worth considering. With works spanning his output, a range of genres and some wonderful performances…
About
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.
Artists
Jeanne Loriod (ondes martenot) & Michel Béroff (piano), Yvonne Loriod (piano), Christoph Poppen (violin), Manuel Fischer-Dieskau (cello) & Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet), Christoph Poppen (violin) & Yvonne Loriod (piano), Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Michel Béroff (piano), Alexandre Rabinovitch & Martha Argerich (pianos), John Ogdon (piano), Olivier Messiaen (organ), Olivier Messiaen (organ) & Naji Hakim (organ), Naji Hakim (organ), Ann Murray (soprano), Philip Langridge (tenor), Andrew Watkinson (violin) & Roger Vignoles (piano), Michèle Command (soprano) & Marie-Madeleine Petit (piano), Rolf Hind (piano) & Cynthia Millar (ondes Martenot)
London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris & Ensemble de Percussion de l’Orchestre de Paris, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, London Sinfonietta & London Sinfonietta Chorus, London Sinfonietta, London Sinfonietta Chorus & London Sinfonietta Voices, André Previn, Serge Baudo, Antal Dorati, Sir Simon Rattle, Terry Edwards
Contents and tracklist
- Jeanne Loriod (ondes martenot), Michel Béroff (piano)
- London Symphony Orchestra
- André Previn
- Recorded: 1977-07-13
- Recording Venue: 11th - 13th July 1977, No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, London
- Serge Baudo - Orchestre De Paris, Orchestre de Paris (second vocals), Serge Baudo (lead vocals)
- Recorded: 1968-01-01
- Serge Baudo - Ens De Percussions De L'Orchestre De Paris - Orch Sym De La Bbc - Jacques Delecluse - Jean Jacques - François Dupin - Alain Jacquet - Gérard Perotin - Orchestre De Paris - Jacques Remy, Serge Baudo - Jacques Delecluse - François Dupin - Ens De Percussions De L'Orchestre De Paris - Jean Jacques - Alain Jacquet - Orchestre De Paris - Orch Sym De La Bbc - Gérard Perotin - Jacques Remy, Jacques Delécluse (second vocals), Francois Dupin (second vocals), Ensemble de percussions de l'Orchestre de Paris (second vocals), Jean Jacques (second vocals), Alain Jacquet (second vocals), Orchestre de Paris (second vocals), BBC Symphony Orchestra (second vocals), Gérard Pérotin (second vocals), Jacques Remy (second vocals), Alain Jacquet (xylophone), Ensemble de percussions de l'Orchestre de Paris (spoken voice), Francois Dupin (spoken voice), Gérard Pérotin (spoken voice), Jacques Delécluse (spoken voice), Jacques Remy (spoken voice), Jean Jacques (spoken voice)
- Serge Baudo
- Recorded: 1968-01-01
- BBC Symphony Orchestra
- Antal Dorati
- Recorded: 1991-01-01
- Recording Venue: 27 September [not 11-16 Oct] 1964, No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, London
- Berliner Philharmoniker
- Sir Simon Rattle
- Recorded: 2004-06-19
- Recording Venue: 17-19 June 2004. Philharmonie, Berlin.
- Christoph Poppen (violin), Manuel Fischer-Dieskau (cello), Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
- Recorded: 1990-11-21
- Recording Venue: 19-21 November 1990, Eglise Notre-Dame du Liban, Paris
- Christoph Poppen (violin), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
- Recorded: 1990-11-21
- Recording Venue: 19-21 November 1990, Eglise Notre-Dame du Liban, Paris
- Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Eric Le Sage (piano)
- Recorded: 1997-02-19
- Recording Venue: 17th - 19th February 1997, St Michael's Church, Highgate, London
- Michel Béroff (piano)
- Recorded: 1978-05-05
- Recording Venue: 21, 23 March - 2, 3, 5 May 1978, Salle Wagram, Paris
- Michel Béroff (piano)
- Recorded: 1969-10-13
- Recording Venue: 17, 18, 30 September - 13 October 1969, Salle Wagram, Paris
- Martha Argerich (piano), Alexander Rabinovitch (piano), Alexandre Rabinovitch (piano), Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky (piano)
- Recorded: 1989-12-31
- Recording Venue: December 1989, EMI Studio No. 1, Abbey Road, NW8
- Olivier Messiaen
- Recorded: 1951-01-01
- John Ogdon (piano)
- Recorded: 1972-07-21
- Recording Venue: 25.VII.1972 No. 1 Studio, Abbey Road, London.
- Olivier Messiaen (organ)
- Recorded: 1956-01-01
- Olivier Messiaen (organ)
- Recorded: 1956-01-01
Awards and reviews
November 2008
…this handsome set from EMI is well worth considering. With works spanning his output, a range of genres and some wonderful performances…
2010
The 14-CD EMI set is one of those incredibly useful, disarmingly cheap, completist pulltogethers, 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.
For those wanting to look deeper into Messiaen's evolution and history, the Accord set of early recordings featuring Messiaen, Loriod and contemporary acolytes is essential. The set begins with Messiaen's and Loriod's 1962 recording of Visions de l'Amen (their second version; an original 1949 account is lost to hopeless sound) and it's a cunningly paced, keenly nuanced performance where articulation and timbre have been carefully considered. Loriod's 1956 account of the Vingt regards has a thrilling atmosphere of discovery, and the Catalogued'oiseaux she cut in '59 has bravura attack, although her later Erato set is more seasoned.
In the mid-1950s Pierre Boulez's Domain Musical society gave many Messiaen premieres, and Boulez's account of the insanely exacting Sept Haïkaï and a joyous performance of Oiseauxexotiques from Rudolf Albert, recorded at Domaine Musical events, enjoy a marvellous sense of time and place. Messiaen's own recording of the Quartet for the End of Time, featuring cellist Etienne Pasquier (with whom he was interred in Stalag VIII-A), is technically wobbly and shrill by modern standards, but has a rooted emotional authenticity that never tries too hard to make its point. The only low-point is Maurice Le Roux's Turangalîla: an apparently fine performance, but the recording is so lamely transferred it's impossible to tell either way.
May 2009
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.
