Oiseaux Exotiques / Couleurs de la Cite Celeste and other works for piano and ensemble

Oiseaux Exotiques / Couleurs de la Cite Celeste and other works for piano and ensemble cover $54.00 Out of Stock
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MESSIAEN
Oiseaux Exotiques / Couleurs de la Cite Celeste and other works for piano and ensemble
Peter Donohoe / Netherlands Wind Ensemble / Reinbert de Leeuuw

[ Chandos / 2 CD ]

Release Date: Saturday 1 January 1994

This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.

Reinbert de Leeuw and his crackerjack Dutch musicians negotiate these difficult scores with dazzling aplomb, not to mention pianist Peter Donohoe's razor-sharp timbre and rhythmic suppleness. The bright, close-up live recording captures the full gamut of Messiaen's intricate instrumentation with amazing clarity. The first disc features celebrated works from a period where Messiaen almost exclusively used birdsong from all over the world as thematic material. "Couleurs de la cite celeste" even begins with his version of the call of the Tui!

In Oiseaux exotiques Messiaen creates a bower-bird's nest of extravagant, endearingly ramshackle ornateness, and in his note on the piece can only breathlessly catalogue (''the Hindu grackle... the prairie chicken or pinnated grouse... the dolichonyx, which Americans call the bobolink...'') all the scraps of bright colour and glinting mirror that he has amassed and piled up. Messiaen drew upon recordings sent to him by a New Zealand ornithologist fan of his work who was able to send him recordings of NZ birds including the Tui which opens "Couleurs de la cite celeste". No other recording of these works brings out the humour and wit of the songs themselves and the atmosphere of almost manic elation and joy, mixed with spiritual ecstasy that characterises Messiaen's musical response to them.

Tracks:

Oiseaux exotiques (1958)for solo piano, winds and percussion
Sept Haïkaï (1962) for solo piano, winds, percussion and 8 violins
Couleurs de la cité céleste (1963) for solo piano, winds and percussion
Un vitrail et des oiseaux (1986) for solo piano and winds
La ville d'en haut (1987) for solo piano, percussion and winds

Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum (1964) for large wind and brass ensemble and percussion