Olivier Messiaen - Piano Music (Ciro Longobardi)

Information

Composer: Olivier Messiaen

CD1

1. 8 Préludes: I. La Colombe
2. 8 Préludes: II. Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste
3. 8 Préludes: III. Le nombre léger
4. 8 Préludes: IV. Instants défunts
5. 8 Préludes: V. Les sons impalpables du rêve...
6. 8 Préludes: VI. Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu
7. 8 Préludes: VII. Plainte calme
8. 8 Préludes: VIII. Un reflet dans le vent...
9. Fantaisie burlesque
10. Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas
11. Rondeau
12. Cantéyodjayâ

CD2

1. 4 Études de rythme: I. Île de Feu I
2. 4 Études de rythme: II. Mode de valeurs et d'intensités
3. 4 Études de rythme: III. Neumes rythmiques
4. 4 Études de rythme: IV. Île de Feu II
5. La Fauvette des jardins

Ciro Longobardi, piano

Date: 2021

Label: Piano Classics

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Description

New recordings from an acclaimed Messiaen pianist of major works beyond the Vingt regards and Catalogue d’oiseaux.

While most listeners to 20th-century music and piano masterpieces will have recordings of Messiaen’s two major cycles in their collection, the rest of his piano music often tends to fly under the radar. Yet Messiaen wrote piano music throughout his life, and among his most characteristic early works is the set of eight Preludes, with their playful evocations of wind and air and dreams and light.

The piano writing may owe much to Debussy’s example, but it’s clear that the 20-year-old composer was already well on its way to developing unique aspects of his language: the blue harmonies, the repetitions and the patient ascensions towards a state of ecstasy that make him among the most imitated of last century’s composers. From the middle period of Messiaen’s protean career, the Quatre études de rythme exercised lasting influence over the most brilliant composers of the avant-garde generation including Boulez and Stockhausen, though their application of the principles of ‘total serialism’ is much less dry and more vivid than countless later imitators.

Ciro Longobardi’s album concludes with perhaps the composer’s single most technically challenging piano work, La fauvette des jardins. This half-hour portrait of the reed-warbler stands as an appendix to the Catalogue d’oiseaux, rarely encountered but a feat of coruscating virtuosity to set alongside the Transcendental Etudes of Liszt and the studies of Alkan and Godowsky. The Italian pianist Ciro Longobardi proved his mettle in Messiaen with a glowingly received album of the Catalogue d’oiseaux for Piano

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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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Ciro Longobardi is an Italian pianist. In 1994, he was a finalist and received the Best Pianist award at the Gaudeamus Competition in Rotterdam. He has performed at leading international festivals and venues across Europe, Asia and the United States, collaborating with prominent orchestras and institutions. Longobardi has recorded extensively for major classical labels, earning critical acclaim, including the 2019 Abbiati Record Award for his recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux. He is a member of Ensemble Prometeo, co-founder of Dissonanzen, and teaches at the G. Martucci Conservatory in Salerno.

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