OLIVIER MESSIAEN (1908-1992): La Fauvette Passerinette (World Premiere Recording), La Colombe, Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas, Île de feu I, Le Traquet stapazin, Morceau de lecture à vue, GEORGE BENJAMIN (b.1960): Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm, KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN (1928-2007): Klavierstücke VII & VIII, DOUGLAS YOUNG (b.1947): River from Dreamlandscapes Book 2, TRISTAN MURAIL (b.1947): Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire... (In memoriam Olivier Messiaen), HENRI DUTILLEUX (1916-2013): D'ombre et de silence, TORU TAKEMITSU (1930-1996): Rain Tree Sketch II, PETER SCULTHORPE (1929-2014): Stars from Night Pieces, JULIAN ANDERSON (b.1967): Etude No. 1, MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937): Oiseaux tristes.
Catalogue Number: 11Q065
Label: Delphian
Reference: DCD34141
Format: CD
Price: $18.98
Description: This isn't going to happen very often. Probably never again, in fact: the discovery of an hitherto unknown, unsuspected, mature work by Messiaen, complete in the composer's manuscript. In 2012, leading Messiaen expert Hill discovered among the many hundreds of pages of Messiaen's notebooks, to which he had been granted access by the composer's widow, what he realised was an entire piece (11 minutes long in this performance), written in 1961 and clearly intended to be part of a second set of Catalogue d'oiseaux, a project that Messiaen had spoken of but that nobody suspected that he had started. The manuscript was the whole piece, at the untidy but decipherable pre-fair-copy stage. The phrasing and dynamics had to be added to the shorthand central section, but the composer's birdsong notebooks provided all the necessary details. La fauvette passerinette - the Sub-Alpine Warbler - is an entirely characteristic entry in the bird catalogue, with the meticulously transcribed lively song of the main bird, and the scene-setting landscape in Messiaen's unmistakable chordal harmony, as well as the depiction of other birds of the region; in this case a noisy group of cuckoos. Essential listening for anyone who values Messiaen's birdsong pieces. The other Messiaen works, and pieces by composers influenced by him (of which Benjamin's Fantasy, whose decorative figuration sounds very much like Messiaen's birdsong, is the most significant, along with Murail's piece with its very Messiaenic harmonies) place the 'new' piece nicely in context. Peter Hill (piano).