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Olivier Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time/Improvisations |
List Price: $29.99
Your Price: $26.99 |
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Description:
Olivier Messiaen is one of those composers whose work is so unique that it cannot possibly be mistaken for anyone else's. His Quartet for the End of Time (composed and first performed in a concentration camp) is one of the most powerful and emotionally satisfying pieces of chamber music ever written. Messiaen devised his own rhythmic and harmonic "modes," and his greatest influences were Catholic mysticism and bird song. Is it any wonder that his music created a whole new sound world? It's sort of the musical equivalent of those computer-generated pictures where, if you stare hard enough, a 3-D object is revealed. Once your ears adjust to what's going on, you¹re completely mesmerized. The trick is in performing the music properly. Here is a performance that brings the piece fully to life. Individually, the playing is excellent (the cellist and clarinetist, in particular, are exceptional). As a group they come as close as any to fulfilling Messiaen's intent: to "bring the listener closer to eternity." Filmed at a live concert in a beautiful old church with lots of arches and nooks, the camera slowly works its way around the architecture; much the way an audience member might look around as the music transported him or her into another world. As a major bonus, this disc includes Messiaen himself improvising three pieces at the organ of the Trinity Church in Paris. The opportunity of being able to watch a composer of this caliber create music spontaneously is easily worth the price of the disc. --Seth Krimsky
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