Messiaen: L'Ascension, Le Tombeau resplendissant, Les Offrandes oubliées, Un sourire 1920s Alpha

Messiaen: L'Ascension, Le Tombeau resplendissant, Les Offrandes oubliées, Un sourire

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AJ 0548

Messiaen: L'Ascension, Le Tombeau resplendissant, Les Offrandes oubliées, Un sourire

Label Catalogue Number:
Alpha 548

Running Time: 64:47

Release Date: September 2019

Genre:
1920s

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About

Paavo Järvi inaugurates his new contract as conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich with a programme devoted to Messiaen. Alpha Classics will accompany this extremely promising combination: ‘I’ve always admired French music very much. (...) I think Messiaen is the most original voice, someone absolutely unique. You need only listen for three seconds to a work by Messiaen to be sure that it is by him. His style is so clear, so unmistakable. In his two early works Les Offrandes oubliées and Le Tombeau resplendissant, religion and mysticism play an important role. If you listen carefully, you will notice how a harmony is continually transformed, so that you can never predict what sound will come next. But Messiaen’s harmonic language is not experimental: it produces an inevitable meaning, and you get the feeling that the chord sequence can be that way and no other. Music is a language of its own; music begins where words leave off.’

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Reviews

“…Järvi masterfully reproduces Messiaen’s sense of sound and his spiritual world in these four symphonic mediations revolving around the Alleluia. The conductor and the Tonhalle Orchestra do this with a convincing naturalness. Full of clarity, sharp nuances and rhythmic conciseness, the work takes on an almost classical dimension.” *****

Norbert Tischer – Pizzicato.lu – 20 November 2019

Michael Cookson - Recording of the year 2019

“Inevitably a release arrives just before the cut-off for the Record of the Year nominations and this was it. Played by the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under Paavo Järvi this release of Messiaen orchestral works, three early and one late, was something of a revelation to me. The focused playing of the Tonhalle is quite splendid and Järvi’s requirement for accuracy and attention to detail has commendable integrity, qualities which feel so essential in this music.”

MusicWeb-International.com - 2019

***** Coup de cœur

Jeremie Bigorie - Classica magazine (France) - December 2019-January 2020

Nominee in Symphonic Music award category

ICMA Award 2020

Performance **** Recording ****

Christopher Dingle - BBC Music magazine - January 2020

“A collection of Messiaen’s shorter orchestral works in fine performances which would make an admirable introduction to the composer.”

Stephen Barber – MusicWeb-International.com – 6 December 2019

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