näive introduces comprehensive Messiaen box set, Beethoven Piano Concertos 1 & 5, and additions to Baroque Voices series
Posted by Kelly in New ReleasesOlivier Messiaen
Various artists including Yvonne Loriod, Reinbert de Leeuw,
Pierre Boulez, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain
“I speak of faith to atheists, I speak of birds to people who never got up at four in the morning to listen to the awakening of birds, I put colors in my music but people don’t see them, I am a rythmician but most people confound rhythm with the cadences of a military march.”
- Olivier Messiaen
On the occasion of the great French composer’s centenary, naïve is proud to release a six-CD Messiaen boxed-set, featuring seven of his incomparable masterpieces performed by many of his most celebrated interpreters, including conductors Reinbert de Leeuw and Pierre Boulez, and pianist Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen’s second wife. The featured recordings were previously issued on the Montaigne label, and are newly-available here in this set, at a special price.
Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was one of the most startlingly original composers of the 20th Century. An ornithologist with a profound love of bird-song (he called birds “the earth’s first musicians”), he was also an organist – and devout Catholic – who, since his appointment there in 1931, played the great instrument virtually every Sunday at the Church of La Trinité in Paris. Messiaen revered and celebrated nature, love, and the divine in works of kaleidoscopic color, bounding rhythms, and vast dynamic range.
Among the highlights of the set is a live recording of Messiaen’s 80th-birthday concert, conducted by Pierre Boulez at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris on November 26, 1988. The concert featured Yvonne Loriod as soloist in the world-premiere performance of Messiaen’s Un vitrail et des oiseuax (”Stained-glass window and birds”) – and two of Messiaen’s grandest orchestral scores: La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ and Des canyons aux étoiles… (”From the Canyons to the stars…”). “Canyons” was commissioned by Alice Tully in celebration of America’s Bicentennial and was first performed in 1974. The work was inspired by the great canyons of Utah, particularly the blazing red rocks of Bryce Canyon, which Messiaen visited in 1972, and, more than any other of his scores, it demonstrates his deep devotion to nature. As Messiaen once observed, “Nature has retained a purity, an exuberance, a freshness we have lost. I have an absolute horror of cities, a horror of all the bad taste man has accumulated around him. Nature never displays anything in bad taste; you’ll never find a mistake in lighting or coloration or, in bird songs, an error in rhythm, melody, or counterpoint.”
CDs 1 & 2
La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ
Yvonne Loriod, piano
Arturo Muruzabal, cello
Martine van der Loo, flute
Harmen de Boer, clarinet
Peter Prommel, marimba
Ruud Stoÿen, vibraphone
Henk de Vlieger, xylorimba
Ludwig van Gijsegem, tenor
Reiner Holthaus, baritone
Choir of the BRT, Brussels
Netherlands Radio Choir & Radio Symfonie Orkest Hiversum / Reinbert de Leeuw
CD 3
Visions de l’Amen
Maarten Bon and Reinbert de Leeuw, pianos
CD 4
Sept Haïkaï; Couleurs de la cité céleste
Un vitrail et des oiseaux; Oiseaux exotiques
Yvonne Loriod, piano
Ensemble Intercontemporain / Pierre Boulez
CDs 5 & 6
Des canyons aux étoiles…
Marja Bon, piano
Hans Dullaert, cor anglais
Ger de Zeeuw, xylorimba
Wim Vos, glockenspiel
Asko Ensemble, Schönberg Ensemble, and Slagwerkgroep Den Haag / Reinbert de Leeuw
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concertos 1 & 5
François-Frédéric Guy, piano
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France / Philippe Jordan
“In performance, [Beethoven's ‘Hammerklavier'] often sounds just as hard as it is. But not on the new recording by François-Frédéric Guy. This 37-year-old French pianist captures the audaciousness and wild flights of the score and plays brilliantly. Yet there is remarkable clarity and poise in his performance. Textures are clear; every note speaks; no detail is fudged.”
- New York Times
With the release of Beethoven’s exuberant Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15 and magisterial Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, “Emperor,” the remarkable French pianist François-Frédéric Guy and the young Swiss conductor Philippe Jordan launch their recorded cycle of Beethoven’s five piano concertos with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, for naïve.
The album is a milestone for Guy, who has embarked on an important phase in his career by playing all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas and concertos around the world. His credentials as a major interpreter of Beethoven’s music have already been displayed in two widely-acclaimed recordings for naïve. The first disc featured sonatas for cello and piano, which he recorded with Anne Gastinel and to which ClassicsToday.com gave its highest rating: ten out of ten for artistic quality and sound quality. The second featured three solo piano sonatas: No. 8, Op. 13, “Pathétique”; No. 19, Op. 49, no. 1; and No. 29, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier.” BBC Radio 3’s CD Review named Guy’s “Hammerklavier” the best version currently available, as does the new book 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die. London’s Times had this to say about the disc:
Guy plays Beethoven like an old friend. His touch is assured and familiar, yet not afraid to step outside formulaic convention. The “Pathétique” has an introspective quality as if Guy were confiding simple truths. His account of the “Hammerklavier” is naturally more robust. The opening and adagio sostenuto exude confidence, while the dazzling scherzo shows off his extraordinarily virtuosic abilities. His subsequent embrace of Op. 49, no. 1 has an almost impertinent familiarity, cheekiest in the throwaway brilliance of the rondo allegro.
The next Guy/Jordan Beethoven recording, due for release in the fall, will feature the Concerto No. 4. London’s Independent reviewed Guy’s performance of the work at the Edinburgh Festival and observed that, “Full of youthful fire, and a touch impatient with it, he took quite a robust approach in the first movement to this most lyrical of the concertos, while demonstrating sensitivity and control in the enigmatic slow movement, and a delightful quicksilver dexterity in the finale.”
While François-Frédéric Guy is especially admired for his interpretations of music in the Austro-German tradition (with a particular affinity for Brahms), he is also at home in other repertoire; his regular appearances at festivals and international concert venues feature such composers as Liszt, Prokofiev, and Bartók, as well as much contemporary music. For more information visit: www.ffguy.com
Conductor Philippe Jordan has, at just 33 years of age, established himself as one of the most gifted and exciting conductors of his generation. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden and was recently named the next music director of the Paris Opéra (his tenure begins in 2009-10). He had a busy and exciting fall in the U.S. this season, when he conducted Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at New York’s Metropolitan Opera to great acclaim and made his debuts with the San Francisco Symphony and New York Philharmonic, with programs that included Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (with soloist Pierre-Laurent Aimard).
A special note on the cover art for the new album: both pianist and conductor had a hand in producing the selected image!
naïve’s “Baroque Voices” series
Seven new titles
Various artists
naïve’s “Baroque Voices” series features gems from the naïve classique catalogue (from the astrée and opus 111 labels) presented in eye-catching and easily identifiable packaging, and made available at mid-price. Inside the handsome new slipcases are the original CDs – many of them award winners – and booklets, featuring all the vocal texts, for both familiar baroque works and beautiful rarities, performed by leading artists. This second installment in the series once again showcases the splendid vocal wealth of the 17th and 18th centuries, in both the secular and sacred traditions.
Highlights of this month’s offerings are Bach cantatas, featuring soloists Andreas Scholl and Barbara Schlick with the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges; Baroque zarzuela arias featuring María Bayo and Les Talens Lyriques under Christophe Rousset; Monteverdi’s Lamento della ninfa with Rinaldo Alessandrini leading Concerto Italiano; Dowland ayres sung by French countertenor Gérard Lesne; and other works including sacred music by Handel and Vivaldi, Hasse’s Requiem, Charpentier’s Te Deum, and Merula’s divine lullaby “Hor ch’è tempo di dormire.”
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