Messiaen: Complete Piano Works
$100.00
Out of Stock6+ weeks add to cart
OLIVIER MESSIAEN
Messiaen: Complete Piano Works
Ciro Longobardi (piano)
[ Brilliant Classics / 7 CD ]
Release Date: Friday 23 January 2026
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.
'A lush, intricate success - meaningful for Messiaen enthusiasts and enjoyable for those new to his work. I highly recommend it.' This review from Fanfare magazine is one of several in the international press to have recognised the achievement of Ciro Longobardi while in the midst of recording the complete piano music of Olivier Messiaen, in a cycle which is now issued complete for the first time, and at budget price.
The piano music of Messiaen spans times and idioms ranging from the Debussyan Préludes of 1928-9, written when the composer was barely out of his teens, through to the jewel-like Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux, from 1985 and one of his last works before his death in 1992. While every bar of the music is distinctively and instantly 'Messiaen', that idiom evolved a good deal over the years, and came to a kind of peak as well as a crisis in the Catalogue d'Oiseaux from the late 1950s. This 13-movement cycle is the only one of Messiaen's major works to end in darkness and despair, with the lonely song of the warbler piercing a pitch-black Brittany seascape, accompanied only by the mournful boom of a lighthouse and the endless rolling of waves against a stony shore.
Messiaen could 'paint' such pictures in sound as vividly as a Debussy or a Richard Strauss before him, but he could also lift his gaze towards a heaven which was as real for him as the earth below. Hence both the all-encompassing power and tender sincerity of the Vingt Regards, composed during the depths of the Second World War, which retains enduring popularity even among musicians and audiences who are challenged either by musical complexity or by direct appeal to the emotions.
This set is thus the fruit of years of living with the music, as well as the years spent recording it. Ciro Longobardi has performed Messiaen in recital and at festivals across Europe, throughout a career spanning three decades which began with his prize-winning appearance at the International Gaudeamus Competition in Rotterdam in 1994. This important Messiaen set is accompanied by his own reflections on the music, as well as the composer's own programme notes.
Tracks:
CD1
Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus (1944)
1. I. Regard du Père 6'56
2. II. Regard de l'étoile 2'49
3. III. L'échange 3'16
4. IV. Regard de la Vierge 5'32
5. V. Regard du Fils sur le Fils 5'36
6. VI. Par Lui tout a été fait 11'15
7. VII. Regard de la Croix 3'22
8. VIII. Regard des hauteurs 2'30
9. IX. Regard du Temps 3'19
10. X. Regard de l'Esprit de joie 8'44
11. XI. Première communion de la Vierge 6'39
12. XII. La parole toute-puissante 2'45
Ciro Longobardi piano
Fazioli F278 mkIII
Total time: 62'49
Recording: 21-23 September & 26-28 October 2023, Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalicco (Udine), Italy
CD2
Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus
1. XIII. Noël 4'24
2. XIV. Regard des Anges 5'00
3. XV. Le baiser de l'Enfant-Jésus 9'27
4. XVI. Regard des prophètes, des bergers et des Mages 3'12
5. XVII. Regard du silence 5'15
6. XVIII. Regard de l'Onction terrible 6'58
7. XIX. Je dors, mais mon coeur veille 9'16
8. XX. Regard de l'Eglise d'amour 13'37
Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux (1985)
9. I. Le Rouge-gorge 2'20
10. II. Le Merle noir 2'14
11. III. Le Rouge-gorge 2'28
12. IV. La Grive musicienne 2'04
13. V. Le Rouge-gorge 2'43
14. VI. L'Alouette des champs 2'26
Ciro Longobardi piano
Fazioli F278 mkIII
Total time: 71'48
Recording: 21-23 September & 26-28 October 2023, Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalicco (Udine), Italy
CD3
Catalogue D'oiseaux (1956-58)
Livre I
1. I. Le Chocard des Alpes 7'54
2. II. Le Loriot 8'07
3. III. Le Merle bleu 12'51
Livre II
4. IV. Le Traquet Stapazin 14'00
Livre III
5. V. La Chouette Hulotte 7'25
6. VI. L'Alouette Lulu 6'47
Ciro Longobardi piano
Fazioli F278 mkIII
Total time: 57'35
Recording: 19-21 December 2017, 18-20 April 2018, Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalicco (Udine), Italy
CD4
Catalogue D'oiseaux
Livre IV
1. VII. La Rousserolle Effarvatte 28'49
Livre V
2. VIII. L'Alouette Calandrelle 5'15
3. IX. La Bouscarle 10'20
Ciro Longobardi piano
Fazioli F278 mkIII
Total time: 44'40
Recording: 19-21 December 2017, 18-20 April 2018, Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalicco (Udine), Italy
CD5
Catalogue D'oiseaux
Livre VI
1. X. Le Merle de roche 18'15
Livre VII
2. XI. La Buse variable 9'46
3. XII. Le Traquet rieur 8'30
4. XIII. Le Courlis cendré 10'04
Ciro Longobardi piano
Fazioli F278 mkIII
Total time: 46'43
Recording: 19-21 December 2017, 18-20 April 2018, Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalicco (Udine), Italy
CD6
Huit Préludes (1928-29)
1. La colombe 1'54
2. Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste 7'30
3. Le nombre léger 1'41
4. Instants défunts 3'55
5. Les sons impalpables du rêve... 3'49
6. Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu 8'37
7. Plainte calme 2'54
8. Un reflet dans le vent... 5'48
9. Fantaisie burlesque (1932) 7'38
10. Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas (1935) 2'58
11. Rondeau (1943) 2'38
12. Cantéyodjayâ (1948) 12'52
Ciro Longobardi piano
Fazioli F278 mkIII
Total time: 63'27
Recording: 18-20 September 2020, 8-10 February 2021, Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalicco (Udine), Italy
CD7
Quatre Études de rythme (1949-50)
1. Île de Feu I 2'07
2. Mode de valeurs et d'intensités 4'30
3. Neumes rythmiques 5'59
4. Île de Feu II 4'55
5. La Fauvette des Jardins (1970) 28'12
Ciro Longobardi piano
Fazioli F278 mkIII
Total time: 46'12
Recording: 18-20 September 2020, 8-10 February 2021, Artesuono Recording Studios, Cavalicco (Udine), Italy
