MESSIAEN: 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (25 CDS)

This 25 CD set offers a comprehensive overview of Messiaen’s work with recordings made between 1956 and 2004 for the Warner labels EMI, Erato and Teldec. The performers include: Olivier Messiaen himself at the organ of the Church of la Trinité in Paris, his wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod and other champions of Messiaen’s music such as Jeanne Loriod, Pierre Boulez, Marie-Claire Alain, Pierre Laurent Aimard and Sir Simon Rattle.

Olivier Messiaen was the most original and influential French composer since Debussy, to whose music he owed an enormous debt. At the age of ten he was given a vocal score of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande which opened up a new harmonic world from which he was able to develop his own highly personal harmonic language, based on seven “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 an aural equivalent of sunlight streaming through a stained-glass window. He also developed his own rhythmic language derived from Hindu and Greek rhythms, his particular fondness being for non-retro-gradable (that is, perfectly symmetrical and self-contained) rhythmic units. Two aspects of nature touched him particularly deeply: mountains and birdsong. The influence of mountains can be heard in his use of monolithic, almost architectural, blocks of sound, and he transcribed and used birdsong as literally as possible in much of his music.

Messiaen: Preludes (8)
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Visions de l'Amen for 2 pianos
Olivier Messiaen (piano), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Quatre Études de rythme
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Quatre Études de rythme
Olivier Messiaen (piano)
Messiaen: Catalogue d'oiseaux Books 1-7
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: La Fauvette des jardins
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Petites Esquisses (6) d'Oiseaux
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Le Banquet Céleste
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Diptyque
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Apparition de l'Eglise Eternelle
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: L'Ascension (Quatre meditations pour l'orchestre)
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: La Nativité du Seigneur
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Les Corps Glorieux
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Messe de la Pentecote
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Livre d'Orgue
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Theme and Variations for Violin and Piano
Christoph Poppen (piano), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Christoph Poppen (violin), Manuel Fischer-Dieskau (cello), Wolfgang Meyer (clarinet), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Fête des belles eaux
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Le Réveil des oiseaux
Orchestre National de France
Kent Nagano
Messiaen: Sept Haïkaï
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Couleurs de la cité céleste
Orchestre Du Domaine Musical
Pierre Boulez
Messiaen: Les Offrandes oubliées (1930)
Orchestre de Paris
Serge Baudo
Messiaen: Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum
Orchestre Du Domaine Musical
Pierre Boulez
Messiaen: Des Canyons aux Étoiles
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Ars Nova Copenhagen
Marius Constant
Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony
Michel Béroff (piano), Jeanne Loriod (ondes Martenot)
London Symphony Orchestra
André Previn
Messiaen: Poèmes pour Mi, books 1 & 2
María Orán (soprano), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Chants de Terre et de Ciel
María Orán (soprano), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Harawi (Chants d'amour et de Mort)
Rachel Yakar (soprano), Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: 3 Petites liturgies de la Presence Divine
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: Preludes (8)
Olivier Messiaen (organ)
Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
Messiaen: Apparition de l'Eglise Eternelle
Marie-Claire Alain (organ)
Messiaen: Le Banquet Céleste
Marie-Claire Alain (organ)
Messiaen: La Nativité du Seigneur
Marie-Claire Alain (organ)
Messiaen: Livre du Saint-Sacrement: excerpts
Naji Hakim (organ)
Messiaen: Le merle bleu
Yvonne Loriod (piano)
Messiaen: La Mort Du Nombre
Ann Murray (soprano), Philip Langridge (tenor) Andrew Watkinson (violin), Roger Vignoles (piano)
Messiaen: Hymne au Saint-Sacrement
Orchestre Philharmonique De L’O.R.T.F.
Marius Constant
Messiaen: L'Ascension (Quatre meditations pour l'orchestre)
Orchestre Philharmonique De L'O.R.T.F.
Marius Constant
Messiaen: Chronochromie for large orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Antal Dorati
Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony
Peter Donohoe, Tristan Murail
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle
Messiaen: Éclairs sur l'au-delà...
Berliner Philharmoniker
Sir Simon Rattle
Messiaen: Visions de l'Amen for 2 pianos
Martha Argerich (piano), Alexandre Rabinovitch (piano)
Messiaen: Trois Mélodies
Michèle Command, Marie Madeleine Petit
Messiaen: O sacrum convivium
London Sinfonietta Voices
Terry Edwards
Messiaen: Cinq rechants
Marcel Couraud