Olivier Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphonie / Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps (1987)

This classic double-disc release from the 80s came up in the comments last time I posted Messiaen, so about time I got around to posting it.  The pairing of Turangalîla with Quartet For The End Of Time brings together two of Messiaen's most celebrated masterpieces, and this set is also essential because it sounds so great, with world-class musicians all round.

Simon Rattle's take on Turangalîla is one of typically lush attention to detail, and makes for interesting side-by-side comparison with my personal favourite rendering under Antoni Wit (see links below), where everything is a bit more in-your-face.  The ondes Martenot does blend better with the orchestra in the Rattle version, I reckon - it's played here by Tristan Murail.

After such mind-meltingly colourful music comes the stark contrast of Quatour Pour La Fin Du Temps.  Famously written and premiered in a prisoner of war camp, the four players effortlessly evoke Messiaen's sombre but spiritually hopeful apocalypse.  The cello (Siegfried Palm) and piano (Aloys Kontarsky) duet sounds particularly affecting.  More Messiaen/Rattle next week.

Disc 1 link
Disc 2 link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Quatre Études De Rythme
Des Canyons Aux Étoiles
Turangalîla Symphony / L'ascension (Naxos recording cond. by Wit)
Et Exspecto Ressurrectionem (Philips recording cond. by Haitink)
Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum (Erato recording cond. by Boulez), etc

Tristan Murail - Gondwana, Désintégrations, Time and Again (1989 compi, rec. '80/'86'/87)

Tristan Murail (b. 1947 in Le Havre) occupies the same upper echelons of French spectralism as Gérard Grisey, meaning that these three works from the 80s are all built on the microscopic properties of sound, subsequently blown back up into unexpected shapes to create otherwordly, spectacular pieces of music.

In the purely orchestral Gondwana (1980), the gradual drift of the ancient supercontinent is represented by small textural elements of the music being reconfigured and arranged into new, more striking layers.  If this wasn't spectacular enough, the other two works were even more fascinating for me.  Time And Again (1986) adds a Yamaha DX7 synth to the orchestra, and again the musical textures and themes are transformed and mutated all over the place.

Désingtégrations (1982-3) is the definite highlight of this disc IMO, with a smaller ensemble playing against tapes generated by computer at IRCAM.  Original tones and timbres from the instruments were fed into the computer and analysed to the smallest detail, with the resultant tapes meshing eerily with the ensemble and painting the tone colours with a wonderfully weird, alien luminosity.  I'm reminded occasionally of Vangelis circa Invisible Connections.  Download this one to enjoy the two orchestral works of course, but Désingtégrations is utterly unmissable.

link