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Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Olivier Messiaen - Complete Organ Works (Gillian Weir)


Information

Composer: Olivier Messiaen

CD1:
  • La Nativité du Seigneur
  • Diptyque
CD2:
  • Le Corps glorieux
  • Verset pour la fête de la dédicace
CD3:
  • Le Banquet céleste
  • Apparition de l'église éternelle
  • Livre d'orgue
CD4:
  • Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité
CD5:
  • L'Ascension
  • Messe de la Pentecôte
CD6:
  • Livre du Saint Sacrement (Part I)
CD7:
  • Livre du Saint Sacrement (Part II)

Gillian Weir, organ
Date: 1994
Label: Collins Classics


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Review

PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****

What makes a first-rate interpreter of Messiaen’s organ works? Certainly a player with a complete mastery of technique, but, moreover, a technique that enables the player to see beyond the printed page and actually interpret the music. Also a player with the imagination and feeling for musical colour that will lend potency to the rich religious symbolism that abounds in the music. Well, let me put my cards on the table straight away, and say that Gillian Weir displays all these prerequisites in abundance on this seven-disc complete cycle, recorded on the four-manual Frobenius organ in Århus Cathedral, Denmark. If you like to test both the water and the dynamic threshold of your speakers with toccatas from Messiaen’s earlier cycles, sample the overwhelming impact of ‘Transports de joie’ from L’ascension or ‘Dieu parmi nous’ from La nativité du Seigneur. The reeds, French in origin, are among the most vividly recorded I have heard (the 32-foot pedal reed is surprisingly round and well focused) and Weir’s sparkling dexterity is aided by a clear and distinct acoustic. What impresses me most throughout these recordings is the innate coherence and imagination that Gillian Weir imparts to the various facets of Messiaen’s art. In the cycle Les corps glorieux, there is an almost percussive rhythmic élan to ‘Joie et clarté des corps glorieux’, and there is a palpable tightening of the knot in ‘Combat de la mort’. The Frobenius organ has an array of distinctive mutation stops, used to fine effect in several movements of the Livre d’orgue. Listen to the opening ‘Reprises par intervention’ for a marvellous juxtaposition of mutations and growling pedal reeds. There is a penetrating depth to the sound of the organ that has been captured well by the engineers, nowhere heard more awesomely than in the ‘Apparition de l’eglise eternelle’. This is a Messiaen cycle that should now enter the shelves of every devotee of his music as a preferred version.

-- Stephen Haylett, BBC Music Magazine

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Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically he employs a system he called modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from the systems of material generated by his early compositions and improvisations. He wrote music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, vocal music, as well as for solo organ and piano, and also experimented with the use of novel electronic instruments developed in Europe during his lifetime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Messiaen

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Gillian Weir (born 17 January 1941 in Martinborough, New Zealand) is a New Zealand-British  concert organist and harpsichordist. Weir studied at the Royal College of Music in London from 1962 to 1965. In 1965-1966 she also studied privately with Anton Heiller, Marie-Claire Alain and Nadia Boulanger. Her repertoire is exceptional in its variety, stretching from the Renaissance to contemporary works. Weir has performed the complete works of Bach as well as others including Messiaen. She has received many prizes, awards and honours, having been made CBE in 1989.

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3 comments:

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  2. Could you re-upload these discs? All the links have expired. Thanks in advance.

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  3. Choose one link, copy and paste it to your browser's address bar, wait a few seconds (you may need to click 'Continue' first), then click 'Skip Ad' (or 'Get link').
    If you are asked to download or install anything, IGNORE, only download from file hosting site (mega.nz).
    If MEGA shows 'Bandwidth Limit Exceeded' message, try to create a free account.

    Pt1 http://lyksoomu.com/rCjp
    Pt2 http://lyksoomu.com/rCjq
    Pt3 http://lyksoomu.com/rCjr
    Pt4 http://lyksoomu.com/rCjs
    or
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    Pt2 https://uii.io/9iVA
    Pt3 https://uii.io/8wQoZ
    Pt4 https://uii.io/N2DDd
    or
    Pt1 https://exe.io/M4jOA
    Pt2 https://exe.io/GGiWmfy
    Pt3 https://exe.io/BmC5Xc
    Pt4 https://exe.io/X5KJU5a

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