Olivier Messiaen - Complete Organ Works (Gillian Weir)

Information

Composer: Olivier Messiaen

CD1

• La Nativité du Seigneur
• Diptyque

CD2

• Le Corps glorieux
• Verset pour la fête de la dédicace

CD3

• Le Banquet céleste
• Apparition de l'église éternelle
• Livre d'orgue

CD4

• Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité

CD5

• L'Ascension
• Messe de la Pentecôte
• Livre du Saint Sacrement (I–XI)

CD6

• Livre du Saint Sacrement (XII–XVIII)

Gillian Weir, organ

Date: 1994

Label: Collins

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Review

What makes a first-rate interpreter of Messiaen’s organ works? Certainly a player with a complete mastery of technique, but, moreover, a technique that enables the player to see beyond the printed page and actually interpret the music. Also a player with the imagination and feeling for musical colour that will lend potency to the rich religious symbolism that abounds in the music.

Well, let me put my cards on the table straight away, and say that Gillian Weir displays all these prerequisites in abundance on this seven-disc complete cycle, recorded on the four-manual Frobenius organ in Århus Cathedral, Denmark. If you like to test both the water and the dynamic threshold of your speakers with toccatas from Messiaen’s earlier cycles, sample the overwhelming impact of ‘Transports de joie’ from L’ascension or ‘Dieu parmi nous’ from La nativité du Seigneur. The reeds, French in origin, are among the most vividly recorded I have heard (the 32-foot pedal reed is surprisingly round and well focused) and Weir’s sparkling dexterity is aided by a clear and distinct acoustic.

What impresses me most throughout these recordings is the innate coherence and imagination that Gillian Weir imparts to the various facets of Messiaen’s art. In the cycle Les corps glorieux, there is an almost percussive rhythmic élan to ‘Joie et clarté des corps glorieux’, and there is a palpable tightening of the knot in ‘Combat de la mort’.

The Frobenius organ has an array of distinctive mutation stops, used to fine effect in several movements of the Livre d’orgue. Listen to the opening ‘Reprises par intervention’ for a marvellous juxtaposition of mutations and growling pedal reeds.

There is a penetrating depth to the sound of the organ that has been captured well by the engineers, nowhere heard more awesomely than in the ‘Apparition de l’eglise eternelle’.

This is a Messiaen cycle that should now enter the shelves of every devotee of his music as a preferred version.

— Stephen Haylett

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Olivier Messiaen (10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist and teacher renowned for his highly original compositions. After studying at the Paris Conservatory with Dukas, Widor and Dupré, among others, he became organist at Sainte-Trinité in Paris in 1931. During World War II, he composed Quartet for the End of Time while imprisoned in Germany. As a teacher at the Paris Conservatory, he mentored leading composers such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His major works include Turangalîla-Symphonie, Catalogue d’oiseaux, and the opera St. François d’Assise.

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Gillian Weir (born 17 January 1941) is a New Zealand-British organist. After winning the St Albans Organ Competition in 1964, she established an international career, performing at leading venues and inspiring generations of organists. Renowned for her extensive repertoire, she has recorded the complete organ works of Messiaen and J.S. Bach, earning widespread critical acclaim. Weir has also served as a teacher, broadcaster, author, and president of several major organ societies. Appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1996, she retired from concert performance in 2012 while continuing to teach.

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