Messiaen: Vingt Regards 7.30 today R3

[Pianorak]

R3 7:30 pm today

Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Steven Osborne performs his critically acclaimed interpretation of one of the most groundbreaking piano works of the 20th century. The monumental Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus is a moving and personal expression of Messiaen's Catholic faith: twenty contemplations on the infant Jesus, based around three distinctive themes, powerfully woven through the music. With its superhuman demands on concentration and stamina, this is a rare chance to hear complete this intense, two-hour masterpiece.

Presented by Martin Handley

Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus
Steven Osborne (piano)

[Bryn]

R3 7:30 pm today

Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Steven Osborne performs his critically acclaimed interpretation of one of the most groundbreaking piano works of the 20th century. The monumental Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus is a moving and personal expression of Messiaen's Catholic faith: twenty contemplations on the infant Jesus, based around three distinctive themes, powerfully woven through the music. With its superhuman demands on concentration and stamina, this is a rare chance to hear complete this intense, two-hour masterpiece.

Presented by Martin Handley

Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus
Steven Osborne (piano)

A clear 'must hear'. I would simply add that Ian Pace will also be perfroming the work at the City University Perfromance Space on Friday 13th December. Book early as I would expect it to be a full capacity audience. Please also note the 6:00 start time.

[Pulcinella]

R3 7:30 pm today

Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Steven Osborne performs his critically acclaimed interpretation of one of the most groundbreaking piano works of the 20th century. The monumental Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus is a moving and personal expression of Messiaen's Catholic faith: twenty contemplations on the infant Jesus, based around three distinctive themes, powerfully woven through the music. With its superhuman demands on concentration and stamina, this is a rare chance to hear complete this intense, two-hour masterpiece.

Presented by Martin Handley

Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus
Steven Osborne (piano)

How do they know?
He might have changed his mind, and be playing one of them a bit differently.

[Bryn]

How do they know?
He might have changed his mind, and be playing one of them a bit differently.

I do hope so. It would be a bit of a let-down if it turns out to be a clone the one or other of the recordings I already have of Osborne playing them.

[Serial_Apologist]

I do hope so. It would be a bit of a let-down if it turns out to be a clone the one or other of the recordings I already have of Osborne playing them.

What a pedantic lot we're becoming - I'd been thinking the very same thing when I read the blurb!

[LeMartinPecheur]

What a pedantic lot we're becoming - I'd been thinking the very same thing when I read the blurb!

Perhaps we're all subconsciously preparing for similar close analyses of party manifestos and candidate blurbs in the next 5 weeks!

[Nick Armstrong]

A clear 'must hear'.

Fantastic so far...

[Bryn]

Fantastic so far...

I have been listening via Freeview thie evening. Rather more engineering gramins in the works than I would have hoped. I just hope they are not also there int the on demand Sounds version, later.

[DracoM]

Utterly utterly......a child playing gleefully, experimentally with light on the edge of eternity.
Rarely been so completely mesmerised and excited by a piece of music in decades.
What a fantastic performance.

[Alison]

Desert island stuff indeed. What a work!

[ostuni]

Just home from the QEH: wonderful, wonderful playing, and a thoroughly well-deserved standing ovation.

[BBMmk2]

Somehow I would like to catch up on this one.

[Richard Barrett]

Some glowing accounts here. I think I shall have to listen to the Hyperion CDs today, it's the closest I'll get. I don't remember this recording setting my world on fire, but maybe I wasn't concentrating. I'm more of a Catalogue d'oiseaux sort of person myself - Vingt Regards often seems to me to pile one ecstatic climax on another until diminishing returns begin to set in.

[Bryn]

Some glowing accounts here. I think I shall have to listen to the Hyperion CDs today, it's the closest I'll get. I don't remember this recording setting my world on fire, but maybe I wasn't concentrating. I'm more of a Catalogue d'oiseaux sort of person myself - Vingt Regards often seems to me to pile one ecstatic climax on another until diminishing returns begin to set in.

Happy birthday, young man. Look out for a PM before too long.

[Richard Barrett]

Happy birthday, young man. Look out for a PM before too long.

Thank you! I've just got in and put on the CD. The sense of wonder is there from the very first notes.

Edit: I got as far as the third movement before Bryn's present of the radio recording arrived through cyberspace so I started again. I remember why I might have discounted the CD: there's an important note missing near the beginning of no.2, and too much pedal in no.3 for my liking so that some of the material lacks definition. The first problem is sorted on the new recording but clearly the second is still the way SO likes it. As one might expect the live version isn't as beautifully recorded as the CD and the audience seems a little consumptive between movements (present company excepted no doubt!). I would love to have been there though.

Another edit: no.10 is pretty cataclysmic though!