Messiaen: Vingt Regards....

[BBMmk2]

Airmard recorded this work?

[Bryn]

Airmard recorded this work?

Yes, and it used to also be available on DVD-A. He also played it during the 1999 Messiaen weekend, and that has been broadcast by Radio 3 twice. The first time being live. His is not an approach I get on with that well. He's fast (116' 05" in the case of the commercial recording), and it sounds like it too, whereas Momo Kodama, who is even quicker (113' 55") manages not to sound anything like as rushed, well not to my ears.

By the way, if you want the Aimard recording, the DVD-A, which I see is still available form amazon marketplace suppliers, can be played on standard DVD Video players, but you only get the Dolby Digital 5.0 surround option. Native 2 channel stereo is only available via a DVD Audio player, and then you get 96/24. There is also an option of 96/24 5.0 surround via a DVD Audio player.

{I have just noticed that play.com have the Aimard DVD-A at £15.99 including p&p. That's cheaper than the double CD version!}

[BBMmk2]

I do rather admire Aimard. Such virtuosic poetic feeling he puts in his playing. Thank you for the information there, Bryn!

[Pilchardman]

My favoured recording is the Beroff. I was surprised the first time I heard 20 Regards referred to as "difficult", since I don't find it so at all.

[Roehre]

My favoured recording is the Beroff. I was surprised the first time I heard 20 Regards referred to as "difficult", since I don't find it so at all.

As is mine. Long ago a present with which I didn't know what to do, as I didn't know any non-orchestral works of Messiaen's then. A revelation - and a treasured present ever since

[johnb]

The Steven Osborne is very special IMO. My view is influenced by being present when he performed Vingt Regards in Cheltenham some years ago.

It was a truly unforgettable evening.

[John Skelton]

Béroff and Osborne are special recordings: either will give great pleasure, as would both!

[makropulos]

Béroff and Osborne are special recordings: either will give great pleasure, as would both!

Completely agree on both counts. Béroff's set was a birthday present when I was a teenager, and I've loved it ever since. I heard Steven Osborne playing it at the Messiaen Festival in La Grave and it was an extremely moving experience. I also think Osborne's recording is marvellous (though I should declare an interest as I had the pleasure of writing the booklet notes for it). For me, they stand out from most of the competition, along with Roger Muraro, who also gave a fabulous performance at La Grave one year.

Incidentally, that was quite an occasion: he was due to play the piano part in the Trois Petites Liturgies in an open-air concert. It started to pour with rain, which just got more torrential, so the entire orchestra went home, and Muraro took an hour to prepare himself before getting everyone back in the church for an unnanounced, more or less impromptu performance of the Vingt Regards. I'll never forget it.

[Alf-Prufrock]

I have the Muraro DVD, a performance I find astoundingly good; but looking at the remoter recesses of my shelves I see I have a version of the Vingt Regards played by Joanna MacGregor which has not been mentioned yet. It was issued on the defunct Collins label. I suppose I ought to get it down and listen to it; but how does it stack up these days in the eyes of our experts here, I wonder. I remember preferring it to the Beroff when I got it; the Beroff set I had as LPs in the seventies, I think, but all LPs have now been discarded for lack of space, sad to say.

[Bryn]

Alf, the Beroff is in the EMI multi-disc Messiaen box some folk here have been long awaiting delivery of:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/EMI/2174662

For a totally numbskull review, see http://www.allmusic.com/album/olivie...w179674/review

[Chris Newman]

I have the Muraro DVD, a performance I find astoundingly good; but looking at the remoter recesses of my shelves I see I have a version of the Vingt Regards played by Joanna MacGregor which has not been mentioned yet. It was issued on the defunct Collins label. I suppose I ought to get it down and listen to it; but how does it stack up these days in the eyes of our experts here, I wonder. I remember preferring it to the Beroff when I got it; the Beroff set I had as LPs in the seventies, I think, but all LPs have now been discarded for lack of space, sad to say.

I read on Presto's listing that Joanna MacGregor is reissued on Warner with some extra goodies. This is their blurb:

Joanna MacGregor plays Messiaen & Krauze
Warner Classics - 2564683932
(CD - 4 discs)
Normally: £20.25
Special: £17.21
Krauze:Quatuor Pour La Naissance
Madeleine Mitchell (violin), David Campbell (clarinet), Christopher van Kampen (cello) & Joanna MacGregor (piano)

Messiaen:Harawi (Chants d'amour et de Mort)New RecordingCharlotte Riedijk (soprano) & Joanna MacGregor (piano)

Messiaen:Quatuor pour la fin du temps Madeleine Mitchell (violin), David Campbell (clarinet), Christopher van Kampen (cello) & Joanna MacGregor (piano)

Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant JésusJoanna MacGregor (piano)
The three works included in this set were written between 1940 and 1945. Messiaen was in his thirties, a period when, looking back, he thought he was most gifted. He now had in place all the elements of his own highly distinctive musical language (his Technique de mon langage musical was published in 1944) based on seven scales, his “modes of limited transposition”. For him all sounds were colour. This, combined with his Catholic faith, which he never doubted, produced what he described as a “theological rainbow”, his ideal music being the aural equivalent of the dazzling blaze of colour created by sunlight streaming through a stained-glass window. And although these pieces use birdsong, it wasn’t yet the overriding influence it was to become in his More fragmented pieces of the 1950s.

“Riedijk has...a steeliness underpinning the venture...Joanna Macgregor is in top form, making the Harawi the pick of [the] set...Macgregor's account of that Everest of cycles, the Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus, is full of ideas...the Quartet for the End of Time has plenty of nice touches” BBC Music Magazine, August 2010 ***

[geofflikesmusic]

I remember seeing Joanna MacGregor perform Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus live in the Cadogan Hall maybe around 5 years ago I can't remember.

Quite a performance. I have to say I've always loved the piece, since first hearing it.

[Beresford]

Messiaen: Vingt Regards

...... Under its due attribution to Paul Kim, it is one of my favourite recordings of Vingt Regards, though the more opportunities I get to here the work performed, the better. Here's hoping Ian Pace makes a decent pair of fists of it at City University next month.

I am just getting to know and admire this work, through Yvonne Loriod's 1975 recording. So I would be interested in how you characterise Kim's recording (or any other favourites) in relation to Loriod's.

(Thanks for merging the threads - quite a few interesting views on recordings have emerged)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(Sorry if this is the wrong thread)

Moved from the Haydn #102 BaL Thread, as I think this is a topic worthy of its own discussion - and one that could very well run & run!

[DracoM]

Steven Osborne's recent perfs in London and Cambridge were an absolute eye-opener.
Is he / has he recorded them?