Essential Messiaen discs.

[MrGongGong]

... although in those cases the birdsong actually sounds like (or actually is) birdsong, as opposed to Messiaen's heavily adapted versions of it which in many cases you'd be hard put to recognise.

For some field recordists the mention of Messiaen results in a rolling of the eyeballs.

(It's still wonderful music)

[BBMmk2]

JLW nand Bryn: I have the Rattle of Messiaen's last great opus for orchestra. It be silly of me not to get the other version you mentioned?

[Richard Barrett]

(It's still wonderful music)

This is true of course.

I agree with Beresford about the Erato box: the best thing about it is Loriod's playing (including in the Marius Constant recording of Des canyons aux étoiles, still my favourite recording of my favourite Messiaen piece). I think I must surely have almost all of the DG box as separate CDs - if I didn't I would certainly have acquired it.

[silvestrione]

Quite a lot ...

Oiseaux Exotiques - Reveil des Oiseaux - La Bouscarle. Yvonne Loriod and the Czech PO, cond. Neumann. Supraphon..

This my favourite Messiaen disc by a long shot.

I don't think Chronochromie has been mentioned? A masterpiece, argued Wifred Mellers years ago, and I've never seen reasons to disagree!
I know three very fine recordings, from Dorati/BBC Sym EMI, Boulez and the Cleveland on DG, and George Benjamin on a disc called Horizon 2, with the RCO.
Rattle did it in concert at the proms with the CBSO: superb.

[ahinton]

I don't think Chronochromie has been mentioned? A masterpiece, argued Wifred Mellers years ago, and I've never seen reasons to disagree!

Nor me! One of my favourites among his works (though Éclairs comes close and there are so many others to admire)...

[Richard Barrett]

I don't think Chronochromie has been mentioned? A masterpiece, argued Wifred Mellers years ago, and I've never seen reasons to disagree!
I know three very fine recordings, from Dorati/BBC Sym EMI, Boulez and the Cleveland on DG, and George Benjamin on a disc called Horizon 2, with the RCO.

One of the not very many Messiaen pieces that Boulez conducted, presumably because (like Et exspecto...) it eschews what Boulez would have regarded as Messiaen's unfortunate tendency towards opulent sentimentality. Although I think his recording sounds relatively unenthusiastic, compared with Dorati anyway, it would be nice to have a new recording of it some time.

[Bryn]

This my favourite Messiaen disc by a long shot.

I don't think Chronochromie has been mentioned? A masterpiece, argued Wifred Mellers years ago, and I've never seen reasons to disagree!
I know three very fine recordings, from Dorati/BBC Sym EMI, Boulez and the Cleveland on DG, and George Benjamin on a disc called Horizon 2, with the RCO.
Rattle did it in concert at the proms with the CBSO: superb.

I have that Rattle performance transferred to CD-R. It is indeed very good. There are also commercial recordings under Cambreling and Zagrosek. Of the three digital remasterings of the Dorati I know, that on a single GROC CD has the most convincing repair to a nasty tape snatch that disrupts a clarinet note (well, actually a wind chord, but a clarinet is involved) approximately 2'03" into the Coda. It was released shortly before the EMI Messiaen box but, for whatever reason, was not the remastering included in the latter.

[jayne lee wilson]

JLW nand Bryn: I have the Rattle of Messiaen's last great opus for orchestra. It be silly of me not to get the other version you mentioned?

If you love it Bbm - then yes, you do need the Vienna Phil and Metzmacher too. The orchestra plays beyond itself in repertoire unusual for them, the recording is a stunner from the Musikverein, and the reading is marvellously dynamic, vivid and imaginative. There's a textural beauty and delicacy the others don't quite share.

Go on, just go and get it.. You owe it to yourself...

[Bryn]

If you love it Bbm - then yes, you do need the Vienna Phil and Metzmacher too. The orchestra plays beyond itself in repertoire unusual for them, the recording is a stunner from the Musikverein, and the reading is marvellously dynamic, vivid and imaginative. There's a textural beauty and delicacy the others don't quite share.

Go on, just go and get it.. You owe it to yourself...

I need to give the Metzmacher another spin. I have not played it for a couple of years or so.

Re. Chronochromie, I post the following without comment:

[BBMmk2]

If you love it Bbm - then yes, you do need the Vienna Phil and Metzmacher too. The orchestra plays beyond itself in repertoire unusual for them, the recording is a stunner from the Musikverein, and the reading is marvellously dynamic, vivid and imaginative. There's a textural beauty and delicacy the others don't quite share.

Go on, just go and get it.. You owe it to yourself...

Thanks JLW! :)

[Oliver]

No mention yet of my favourite Messiaen- or perhaps more accurately, the one that introduced me to his music when I was a teenager- Trois Petites Liturgies.
After hearing it at the Proms (1965?) I purchased the Baudo recording which subsequently became an indispensable accompaniment to my adolescent angst.
I can't recall London performances since then and rely on a decent Virgin recording conducted by Terry Edwards. I see that a new Danish recording is being released- reviewed in yesterday's Guardian.
The Ozawa Turangalila was bought and much enjoyed soon after this. I liked the Takemitsu on the fourth side, too. Plenty of better performances since....unlike of the Liturgies.

[Barbirollians]

Previn's Turangalila.

The de Peyer QFTEOT coupled with the BBCSO/Dorati of Chronochromie

[Petrushka]

I too think that Previn's Turangalila is indispensable but have to say that a BBC MM CD with Thierry Fischer and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is one that runs it very, very close.

What about Et exspecto? I have the two Boulez recordings plus Haitink and the Concertgebouw but think this piece still awaits its ideal recording or have I missed one?

One of the very proudest moments of my life was meeting Olivier Messiaen after a Manchester performance of Turangalila on February 21 1978. I still have the programme signed by him and Yvonne Loriod.

[makropulos]

I too think that Previn's Turangalila is indispensable but have to say that a BBC MM CD with Thierry Fischer and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales is one that runs it very, very close.

What about Et exspecto? I have the two Boulez recordings plus Haitink and the Concertgebouw but think this piece still awaits its ideal recording or have I missed one?

One of the very proudest moments of my life was meeting Olivier Messiaen after a Manchester performance of Turangalila on February 21 1978. I still have the programme signed by him and Yvonne Loriod.

For Et Exspecto I think the first Boulez recording (Percussions de Strasbourg, Domaine musical et al.) comes pretty close to ideal. The second Boulez - definitely not so good in my view.

But mentioning Et Exspecto reminds me of an extraordinary event taking place this summer in the French Alps - indeed ON one of the French Alps, La Meije, as part of the 2015 Festival Messiaeen au Pays de la Meije. I'm lucky enough to be giving the pre-concert talk for this event (at 11:00 the same day, in La Grave) but the concert itself - at 6:00 p.m. - promises to be mind-boggling:

http://www.festival-messiaen.com/detail-concert-messiaen-fr/74-et-exspecto-resurrectionem-mortuorum-a-2400m-d-altitude.html

I see it's going to be recorded for TV, which is great news. And fingers crossed that the weather isn't problematic (there's a Plan B in case of bad weather, but it would be a terrible shame). I've never been to a concert before that can *only* be reached by téléphérique... :)

[Richard Barrett]

For Et Exspecto I think the first Boulez recording (Percussions de Strasbourg, Domaine musical et al.) comes pretty close to ideal. The second Boulez - definitely not so good in my view.

I'm glad to see you say that because it's my feeling too. The entry of the first chords in the opening movement for example is an unforgettable timbre... something that had me searching out a score to see what strange thing was going on there. Of course when you look at the score it's "just chords". Despite Messiaen's fairly transparent composition technique there's something quite intangible going on that in a sympathetic performance performs some kind of alchemy on the notes and turns them into such memorable sounds... I guess this is connected somehow to the synaesthetic ideas behind Messiaen's harmony and orchestration - one might not "see the same colours" as the composer but there is certainly something different going on there.

What do you think of Previn's recording of Turangalîla, makropoulos? Everyone here seems to be raving about it but it never did much for me. (Admittedly it's many years since I heard it.)