Messiaen Poèmes pour Mi/Haikai/Reveil des Oiseaux.
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Olivier Messiaen
Label: DG
Magazine Review Date: 2/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 453 478-2GH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Poèmes pour Mi |
Olivier Messiaen, Composer
Cleveland Orchestra Françoise Pollet, Soprano Olivier Messiaen, Composer Pierre Boulez, Conductor |
| Réveil des oiseaux |
Olivier Messiaen, Composer
Cleveland Orchestra Olivier Messiaen, Composer Pierre Boulez, Conductor Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Piano |
| (7) Haïkaï |
Olivier Messiaen, Composer
Cleveland Orchestra Joela Jones, Piano Olivier Messiaen, Composer Pierre Boulez, Conductor |
Author: Michael Oliver
Since all the performances here are excellent, virtuoso indeed, and the recordings are first-class, this can be confidently recommended to any Messiaen enthusiast who happens to want these three works. But it would also make an ideal next step for anyone who has recently been bowled over by Turangalila, say, or the Catalogue d’oiseaux, and wants to explore Messiaen methodically. For that listener the Poemes pour Mi would represent him at his most lyrically passionate and sensuous, the Reveil des oiseaux his ‘bird style’ at its most intransigent (its thematic material, unlike the Catalogue, consists exclusively of bird-song, as bright and as hard-edged as possible), while the Sept Haikai stand both for Messiaen’s love-affair with Asia and his attempts to convey vivid colour in music.
And in Francoise Pollet the Poemes get as close as any reading has to Messiaen’s specification of a grand soprano dramatique as the ideal solo voice. Though not quite as stunningly precise as Jane Manning and without quite the range of quieter colours the songs sometimes demand, she has considerable reserves of power, she can be voluptuous when needed and is even better at dramatic declamation than Manning. She can sustain a long arch of melody splendidly and, assisted by Boulez’s firm control, generates great rhythmic excitement in the fourth and ninth songs of the set. This latter quality gives exhilaration to Reveil des oiseaux, as the dawn chorus grows ever more vociferous, the tangle of exuberant melodies more complex; Aimard is glitteringly precise here. But it is the Sept Haikai that are most crucial to Messiaen’s later development, with their pairs of movements reflecting each other, their searing saturated colours (the temple archway in the sea, lacquer-red against indigo!), their use of juxtaposed ‘refrains’ and their central homage to the sound of a Japanese orchestra.
Boulez has expressed reservations about some of his great teacher’s theories and attitudes, but evidently has few if any about the fantastic sound world imagined by his astonishingly precise ear.'
And in Francoise Pollet the Poemes get as close as any reading has to Messiaen’s specification of a grand soprano dramatique as the ideal solo voice. Though not quite as stunningly precise as Jane Manning and without quite the range of quieter colours the songs sometimes demand, she has considerable reserves of power, she can be voluptuous when needed and is even better at dramatic declamation than Manning. She can sustain a long arch of melody splendidly and, assisted by Boulez’s firm control, generates great rhythmic excitement in the fourth and ninth songs of the set. This latter quality gives exhilaration to Reveil des oiseaux, as the dawn chorus grows ever more vociferous, the tangle of exuberant melodies more complex; Aimard is glitteringly precise here. But it is the Sept Haikai that are most crucial to Messiaen’s later development, with their pairs of movements reflecting each other, their searing saturated colours (the temple archway in the sea, lacquer-red against indigo!), their use of juxtaposed ‘refrains’ and their central homage to the sound of a Japanese orchestra.
Boulez has expressed reservations about some of his great teacher’s theories and attitudes, but evidently has few if any about the fantastic sound world imagined by his astonishingly precise ear.'
Messiaen Poèmes pour Mi/Haikai/Reveil des Oiseaux.
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