Bate

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Jennifer Bate at the Organ of St. Pierre de Beauvais Cathedral
L'Ascension/The Ascension
Les Corps Glorieux/The Bodies in Glory

Messiaen: L'Ascension/Les Corps Glorieux/Bate, Music, Olivier Messiaen, Jennifer Bate

Average customer rating:

Good performances of early Messiaen organ music

Messiaen: L'Ascension/Les Corps Glorieux/Bate

Manufacturer: Regis Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Classical | Indie Music | Stores | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000AL9ED
Release Date: 2003-07-09

Album Description

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
Jennifer Bate at the Organ of St. Pierre de Beauvais Cathedral
L'Ascension/The Ascension
Les Corps Glorieux/The Bodies in Glory

Customer Reviews:

Good performances of early Messiaen organ music.......2004-01-14

Regis Records are a small British company that have made something of a reputation for themselves in the UK by reissuing at budget price a wide variety of (often rather fine) recordings that had fallen out of the catalogue. They are now starting to be available on the other side of the Atlantic (if not usually quite as cheaply as in the UK) and have a number of worthwhile recordings to choose from. This disc is one: part of a series that remastered Jennifer Bate's Unicorn-Kanchana recordings of Messiaen's organ music.

This disc contains two works from the 1930s. L'Ascension is better known in the version for orchestra, but (with the exception of the third movement) that version is merely an arrangement of the organ original, written in 1932. This is a comparatively traditional, conservative work, lasting about twenty-five minutes, though suffused throughout with the warm glow of Messiaen's trademark modal harmonies: however it shows little of Messiaen's later love of complex rhythms. The first movement (for winds only in the orchestral version) is a slow, ritualistic tableau; the second alternates more lyrical music with a dance-like refrain. The third movement (replaced by a rather inferior one in the orchestral version) is a brilliant toccata and the finale a slow ascent into the treble (the orchestral version, for strings alone, is less effective than the organ original).

Written seven years later, and lasting nearly twice the length, Les Corps Glorieux is a distinctly more ambitious work than L'Ascension (in between these works, Messiaen had completed the epic cycle La Naitivité du Seigneur). The seven movements of Les Corps Glorieux display less conservative, more dissonant harmonies than L'Ascension and also are distinctly more rhythmically complex. The first movement is an unaccompanied monody directly indebted to plainsong; it is followed by a slow second movement that contrasts simultaneous playing in different modes and a highly complex, multipartite third movement that looks forward to the radical works of the late 1940s. The fourth movement, at fifteen minutes, is by far the longest in the work and is also the central axis around which the entire cycle revolves. It begins as a ferociously dynamic toccata, but concludes with a long, placid slow section based on a transformation of the toccata theme. The fifth movement parallels the first in its use of monody, though here it is rhythmically lively and doubled at the octave; it is followed by a joyous sixth movement complete with rather jazzy harmonic progressions. The finale is a very slow trio in tripartite form: a meditation on the Trinity.

One does not have to share Messiaen's intense Catholic faith to listen to these works; indeed these two pieces are distinctly accessible and ought to be readily enjoyed by just about anybody. They may not be Messiaen at his absolute peak, but they are still strong works, worth anyone's attention, and Jennifer Bate's performance is very good (and endorsed by the composer). If Messiaen's own rival recording arguably has that extra dash of authenticity, the rather poor sound on it would make it hard to recommend ahead of this fine disc.

Messiaen: L'Ascension- Les Corps Glorieux
Average customer rating:
Messiaen: L'Ascension- Les Corps Glorieux
Jennifer Bate
Manufacturer: Regis Records/Premiere
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00005V4W9
Release Date: 2007-05-29