Customer Reviews

Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum; Chronochromie; La Ville d'en haut

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When I heard this performance of `Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum,' my first thought was on how `French' the performance was. It taps into the fascination with timbre that is characteristic of Faure,' of Debussy and of Messiaen. Everything is balanced to a razor sharp perfection. There are no colour smudges here. The voices are given a great amount of equality and reserve to that effect. You can hear everything. The clusters are so balanced that they sound as one voice, which is exactly as they should. There is great attention paid to the gongs being of individual character, so that the separate gongs create a timbral melody that is individual and distinct. Everything is structurally sensitive; dynamics are balanced against all other parts of the piece, timbres are the same when a particular choir enters at one section and when they enter in another.
However, the performance is insensitive in other ways. The tempo pushes ahead with the same metronomic drive through most of the piece, bowling over cadences that cry out for a slight slowing. There are changes of tempo, but they are mostly planned so that the timbres can breath enough, for example, to allow us to hear the beats of the chime timbre as it solos. The tam tam crescendi, which I am convinced are there to scare the audience to death with sheer volume, are subdued, put within the context of the larger piece, subordinated. The chilling percussion interludes are also balanced with one another to create one voice, which makes sense within this reading of the piece, but I think that the percussion can be much more macabre, much more frightening if the instruments were to have more freedom of expression (less attention to balance). In effect, the affect is subdued. It comes through, but it feels lacking at certain points in the work. At the final crescendo, one should be absolutely terrified; it should be huge, awful, awesome... but the Cleveland Orchestra doesn't really take it to that point. They technically do crescendo at the end; it gets louder. However, the energy doesn't come up. The ending needs to charge and then leave you hanging. That is one of the whole points of the piece; expectation.
I waffle back and forth between this reading and one by the Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra of Berlin under Karl Anton Rickenbacher. They offer a characteristically `German' reading; one that is very expressive and passionate (and that really scares you out of your socks at the end), but in which the voices are not balanced and the work is overall more choppy. I guess when I want to hear the affect of the work, I listen to Rickenbacher. When I want to hear the structure (which is also very meaningful), I listen to Boulez. Both are valuable readings. I recommend both. `Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum' is one of the best works of Messiaen. It should be heard by anyone with an interest in modern music. It would be an interesting listen for anyone, though, so I recommend it to you.

Oliver Messiaen was a pivotal, transitional figure in 20th century music, bridging the early Moderns and the post-war serialists. Boulez and Xenakis were both his students. His music is epic, clearly the product of a visionary. This is an essential disc of his work, impeccably performed, conducted and recorded. "Chronochromie," "the color of time," is 7 blocks of music, static and forbidding -- but the orchestra plays an endless variety of bird songs! This was one of Messiaen's central preoccupations, related to the inspiration he received from St. Francis. On first listening, I found it difficult to enter this sound world, but on repeated listening, it opens up vistas of imagination. The echoes of this resolute abstraction can be heard in virtually everything by Xenakis. The middle piece, "The City Above," is a shorter work, and successfully invokes a vision of Heaven. Finally, "I Await the Resurrrection of The Dead" is an unqualified masterpiece. Stirred by his religious faith, Messiaen knocks the listener back in sheer awe with his powers of orchestration.

While the Turangalila-symphonie is Messiaen's most popular work, and most often performed, these later works are deeper, greater accomplishments, and should be heard by anyone who has a passion for 20th century music!

This is a stunning disc - for the performances, for the recorded sound and, of course, for the works themselves.

Chronochromie and Et expecto have both been recorded before - in both cases not long after their premieres. Both are works of Messiaen's Middle Period when the force and impact of Nature as a reflection of the composer's religious beliefs was right in the foreground of his writing (cf. Des canyons aux etoiles, Couleurs de la cite celeste or the Books of the Catalogue d'Oiseaux for other examples). Here you will find Messiaen's passion for birdsong given full rein along with his intensely vivid impressionist musical landscapes. The central movement of Chronochromie where a multitude of solo strings pile up all the different birdsongs of a dawn chorus is magical in this performance - the perfect mix of clarity and chaos. This is staggering writing that, inevitably, foreshadows the passage in St. Francois when the saint preaches to the birds.

Chronochromie is the strongest piece on this disc, tightly organised along the lines of classical Greek poetic drama with carefully balanced movements (Strophe set against Antistrophe as in a Greek Chorus) and filled with bold gestures, wonderful melodies and the richest of multihued harmonies (Messiaen always tends to see his harmonies in synesthesic terms). The work has tended to live in the shadow of more obviously dramatic pieces like Canyons and Et expecto. The latter as recorded here will have you jumping at the sudden screeches of the birds. The games with additive rhythms on a range of gongs and tam-tams are certainly exciting. Here, too, are the monumental chorales so typical of Messiaen. But it seems to me that Et expecto lacks some of the cohesion that holds Chronochromie together as a whole work, rather than as a series of pictures.

The performances of both works, as well as of La Ville en haut (another vision of the Celestial City) are masterly from the composer's pupil. The clarity of texture, the precision of ensemble and the rhythmical accuracy Boulez secures from his Cleveland forces are all thrilling. The dynamic range will test your equipment and the tolerance of your neighbours, especially in these recordings which present the sounds of the mostly wind and percussion forces with remarkable accuracy and with great depth as well as spread to the stereo image.

While the winter may be a time for introspection and solitude, winter is also a time for anticipating Spring and the rebirth of all that is treasured in living things. Olivier Messiaen was probably more attuned to the sounds of nature than even Gustav Mahler and the two composers shared this love of the freedom and transparency of the fields and skies alive with the songs of birds and distant tunes. Mahler infused these thoughts into his symphonic works as relief from his ever present angst. Messiaen on the other hand spent his life composing works that incorporated the bliss of nature and found the promise of afterlife and renaissance in these sweet fantasies.

In this wondrous CD the immaculate Pierre Boulez finds just the right sense of clarity and control in conducting the Cleveland Orchestra in three of Messiaen's masterworks: CHRONOCHROMIE, LA VILLE D'EN HAUT, and ET EXSPECTO RESURRECTIONEM MORTUORUM. This is music for meditation and release. The sheer beauty of Messiaen's music is captured as beautifully as any other recording, and the shimmering glow of the recording never pushes the dynamic or ignores the whispers. A fine CD for awaiting spring.

I have to say, upon listening to the first track of this CD I thought, "what the heck did I buy?" But I kept listening and you know what? I was won over. I think "Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum" is my favorite piece here--it's awesome, and I can't imagine it being better played than by Boulez & co., which makes this CD essential. Want one CD by Messiaen? I'd say it should be this very one. Check him out! Come on!

I had the distinct pleasure of hearing the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, play Messiaen's "Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum" at Tanglewood. This was a long time ago (probably about 20 years?)and I had no idea who Messiaen was. I'd gone to this concert to hear the major piece on the program: a Mahler symphony. I don't remember the Mahler; I cannot forget the Messiaen! This piece of music and how it sounded OUTDOORS on a gorgeous summer afternoon (the composer wanted this music played outdoors)continues to "haunt" me. Its power, majesty, absolute strangeness and pure beauty are really overwhelming. I had never heard music like this before. It was astonishing in its beauty and "otherwordliness." But I don't want to frighten any traditional music lovers away. This is not difficult music to listen to. I have since heard it twice in concert INDOORS and I own this Boulez recording. "Et Exspecto..." is done wonderfully here with this great conductor, probably as good as it will ever be done ON DISC, BUT something indefinable is lost having to contain the sounds in a room. Buy it, of course, because it should be heard...but, if you can, try to influence an outdoor, summer music festival to program it.

"Et exspecto. . . " was meant to be performed out-of-doors. It was a DeGaulle Commission for the dead of the Second World War. The obvious subject matter is directly reflected in the immense physicalness of the music,the large recurring brass statements. Like the recurrence we experience in cathedrals, we feel the weight, the severity here. Messiaen sets up a spiral-like structure and ultimately this is what you feel as a listener. Boulez as always brings a punctuated clarity to this hommage with metal percussion sounds,glockenspiel,almglocken helping to pinpoint these brass laments. Hearing the work live you will experience this separation of these sonorities more than this recording.Also with a large array of tam-tams spread over the stage area there is a sonic-like symbolism, as if Messiaen is constructing a piece of sonic sculpture. Huge surging like tam-tam tremoli as well, overwhelming makes you "feel" and sense the dead. "Chronochromie" as well was the first to exhibit what now is known as Momente form. This is where you have large creative configurations of materials, timbres,chords,linear ideas. To help organize and project these ideas you align them in terms of similarities, so for instance several screens of music can contain one to ten of these musical ideas in gradations.And certain moments become defined by what musical idea is most prevalent. So in certain moments, one can say are saturated by the woodwind sound, or the presence of a chord. What Messiaen does here is reduce his musical ideas from simple woodwind, fast-filigreed ideas to large orchestral tutti complete with as-fast-as-possible scales and arpeggios.This is now a classic work and has stood the test of time, so much so that many subsequent works of Messiaen have been dwarfed by it. Boulez and Cleveland as always brings a refinement of means.

I think the often used criticisms of Boulez as being `overly clinical' or `overly analytical' is (often) misguided, but it is certainly true that he strives more than anything to achieve clarity of textures and structures. In that sense, this is a cunningly put together program that really plays up Boulez's strength - both in Exspecto and in Chronocromie one of the main challenges for an interpreter is exactly to prevent the rich textures from constricting. At the time this recording was made the Cleveland Orchestra was (according to the conductor) rather unfamiliar with Messiaen's music, and while the performances here certainly do not suggest lack of skill or understanding, there is a certain freshness and sense of discovery in these performances (well, I may be imagining it, but nonetheless) that is particularly appealing.

Chronochromie (`the color of time') from 1960 is cast in seven imposing structures (the durations of that are mathematically determined) that reflects Messiaen's passion with birdsong and with mountains (and manipulating musical durations based on note values). In Chronocromie, development in the normal sense is eschewed in favor of stasis and repetition; it is a spectacular piece, however, with the fluttering woodwind and percussion birdsong against the monstrous mountains of low winds, humming and droning with grand, rocky chords in between the sounds of water and streams. Despite its strict, formal, mathematical basis of various permutations of tone durations here related to his idea about "modes of limited transposition", the work is really a big tone poem depicting a natural world without people and therefore without time. The culmination is surely the "Epode", where eighteen bird songs (in the strings) simultaneously cry out for more than four minutes (if it sounds like chaos I assure you that it really creates an amazing kaleidoscope of sound - it is, by the way, a really difficult part and excellently executed on this recording, sounding clearer and more vivid than I would have imagined possible while still realizing the sense of timelessness).

Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum is scored for 34 winds and percussion ensemble, and is still infused with Messiaen's fascination with mountains - it is a monumental, imaginative work that also creates the impression of time suspended, but is imbued with more of an sense of expectation and forward looking than Chronochromie. It is cast in five "blocks" where the first is a monophonic chant, the second a dialogue (commenced by a six note lightning flash theme - according to the composer the melodic character of the theme is defined by the decay of the notes rather than their attack, and Boulez captures that point wonderfully) turning into a chorale. In the third there is symbol-heavy use of bird-song, whereas the fourth represents resurrection in all it flashy, monumental glory (I assume), and the sixth represents the chant of the first block leading to a colorful sequence of chords.

The disc also gives us La ville d'en haut, scored for winds, percussion and piano - an almost `ethereally colorful' work - a shaft of white light that contains all the colors - it is scored for winds, percussion and piano and cast in contrasting textural sections (full of playful bird song and chorale-like material offset by shimmering colors from the piano and percussion, as usual). Though I do agree that the contents of this late work consist of gestures we have heard before from the composer, the end result is still endlessly fascinating. Throughout all three works the playing is beyond reproach, realizing a clarity and rhythmic precision, and at the same time sense of wonder, that has rarely if ever been achieved elsewhere. The sound quality is fine - clean and clear and with a good dynamic ranger. In short, this is a very strongly recommended release of dazzlingly, masterly music in marvelous performances.

Pierre Boulez could not conduct a loser if he tried. He probably had a chance to meet the composer since he was the student of the strange genius Oliver Messiaen. This piece requires an open mind to appreciate it unlike any other Oliver Messaien composition. I am lucky to have seen Oliver in person in my lifetime. If you like other Oliver Messaien pieces you wont be disappointed. I loved it. Hope you can still get it! Who is around to take over for Pierre Boulez? that is my worry.

While the French composer Olivier Messiaen is popularly known for his Roman Catholic piety, a lesser-known side of his output is his modernist innovation in rhythm and scoring. It is these works that have appealed most to conductor Pierre Boulez, who here leads the Cleveland Orchestra.

"Chronochromie" (1959-1960) is a dazzling series of permutations of 32 different notelengths with pitches derived from birdsong, a source Messiaen had lately begun to exploit as his chief source of melody. There's all kind of eggheaded rhythmic theory in the work, but what impressed the average listen is how Messiaen seemed to write rhythm less a flow and more as a succession of blocks. Even when various orchestral players go off on their own individual birdsong lines, everything stays remarkably delineated. In an era when new rhythmic exploration were either subdued to the arbitrariness of serialism or seemingly abolished altogether by e.g. Boulez and aperiodicity, old man Messiaen produced a highly original soundworld that makes great sense to the ears.

"Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorem" (1963-1964) sprung from a commission for a requiem for the dead of the two world wars. Messiaen, however, thought on the bright side and wrote this vision of the resurrection of the dead. Scored for wind, brass and percussion, it juxtaposes vast blocky sections with more intimate and melodic ones. The work has a nice dramatic arc where things gradually get bigger and bigger. The percussion involves all manner of timbres. I'd definitely recommend hearing this on a good stereo system. And Messiaen was a master at writing brass chorales (think, for example, of the opening of his last work "Eclairs sur l'au-dela").

Unfortunately, after the late 1960s (I personally draw the line at "La Transfiguration"), Messiaen's music stagnated, with works seeming mere collections of stock gestures with little original content. "La ville d'en haut" (1987) is an example of this disappointing late style: lots of birdsong, a virtuoso piano part, endless chorales, and nothing we haven't heard before.