Messiaen: Harawi - Songs of Love & Death / Shelton, Constable

On this CD:

1. Harawi, song cycle for soprano & piano, I/28
Composed by Olivier Messiaen
Performed by John Constable, Lucy Shelton

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Completed in 1945, Harawi has Messiaen taking his cue from the centuries-old Tristan and Isolde legend and extending the tale into new musical realms. Messiaen cottoned to a rhythmic approach that decades later seems uneven or, at least, artfully unsteady. Harmonically, Messiaen weaves in his fascination with bird songs, which begin appearing in the second movement's piano solo. Later in the piece, as the lovers near their death--a fate ensured in the piece by the very title song, a Peruvian-Quecha word for a love song whose lovers perish--the music becomes more extravagant and prickly. Piano trills teeter between two atonal resolutions, wavering threateningly. Meanwhile soprano Lucy Shelton edges her voice closer and closer to a whirling explosion of passion as John Constable abuts his jarring phrases with knotted slams. Shelton dons the mournful mantle too, pushed to emotive depths by Constable's excellent balance of clearly struck notes and hovering resonance (here Constable sounds like Aki Takahashi doing Morton Feldman). Messiaen loved the Tristan and Isolde tale enough to base a trilogy on it, and from the close-knit economy of these duos, he would launch into the Turangalîla-symphonie (captured excellently by Yan Pascal Tortelier and the BBC Philharmonic on a 1998 Chandos recording) and round out the threesome with Cinq Rechants (available on yet another fine Chandos recording, Pupils of Messiaen. This is a striking rendition of the set's front door. --Andrew Bartlett

Messiaen: Harawi - Songs of Love & Death / Shelton, Constable, Music, Olivier Messiaen, John Constable, Lucy Shelton, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Classical Vocals, Song Cycle for Solo Voice and Piano, Vocal

Average customer rating:

Great piece. Performance doesn't compare to...

Messiaen: Harawi - Songs of Love & Death / Shelton, Constable

Manufacturer: Koch Int'l Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

All Works by Messiaen | Messiaen, Olivier | ( M ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music
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General | Songs & Lieder | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
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Des Canyons Aux Etoiles

ASIN: B00000G4TL
Release Date: 1999-01-19

Tracks:

Song Of Love And Death: La ville qui dormait, tio (The City That Slept, You)
Song Of Love And Death: Bonjour toi, colombe verte (Hello There, You Green Dove)
Song Of Love And Death: Montagnes (Mountains)
Song Of Love And Death: Doundou tchil
Song Of Love And Death: L'amour de Piroutcha (Pirouthca's Love)
Song Of Love And Death: Repetiton planetaire (Planetary Reptition)
Song Of Love And Death: Adieu (Farewell)
Song Of Love And Death: Syllabes (Syllables)
Song Of Love And Death: L'escalier redit, gestes du soleil (Staircase Retodl, Gestures Of The Sun)
Song Of Love And Death: Amour oiseau d'etoile (Love Star-Bird)
Song Of Love And Death: Katchikatchi les etoiles (Katchikatchi The Stars0
Song Of Love And Death: Dans le noir (In The Dark)

Amazon.com

Completed in 1945, Harawi has Messiaen taking his cue from the centuries-old Tristan and Isolde legend and extending the tale into new musical realms. Messiaen cottoned to a rhythmic approach that decades later seems uneven or, at least, artfully unsteady. Harmonically, Messiaen weaves in his fascination with bird songs, which begin appearing in the second movement's piano solo. Later in the piece, as the lovers near their death--a fate ensured in the piece by the very title song, a Peruvian-Quecha word for a love song whose lovers perish--the music becomes more extravagant and prickly. Piano trills teeter between two atonal resolutions, wavering threateningly. Meanwhile soprano Lucy Shelton edges her voice closer and closer to a whirling explosion of passion as John Constable abuts his jarring phrases with knotted slams. Shelton dons the mournful mantle too, pushed to emotive depths by Constable's excellent balance of clearly struck notes and hovering resonance (here Constable sounds like Aki Takahashi doing Morton Feldman). Messiaen loved the Tristan and Isolde tale enough to base a trilogy on it, and from the close-knit economy of these duos, he would launch into the Turangalîla-symphonie (captured excellently by Yan Pascal Tortelier and the BBC Philharmonic on a 1998 Chandos recording) and round out the threesome with Cinq Rechants (available on yet another fine Chandos recording, Pupils of Messiaen. This is a striking rendition of the set's front door. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews:

Great piece. Performance doesn't compare to..........2001-08-26

I remember the first time i listened to Harawi. I was aboslutetly enchanted by the sense of color, rythym, harmony, and banility. Messiaen seems to me a composer who is not afraid of using banality properly and it works very well in his works, especially in this, the first if his 'Tristan' trilogy. One can't help but get a divine sense of exhilaration from listening to the lines 'mange et turnant' in the Repetition Planetare. The Oiseax d'etoille (sic) has a warmness that clashes with the images of night and the apparent surrealism in the bird calls to give this piece a beautiful cornicorpia of colors. If anyone is interested in getting a pleasant introduction to messiaen, if they are not catholic, i recomend Harawi. The music is great but Messiaen wrote the text and thus it is quite bad. But the music more than makes up for it. (I wish i could say the same about St Francis of Assisi by the same composer.) That being said, i do not reccomend this recording. The Miller/Manning is far superior in spirit. In the Shelton/Constible recording, the tempos are sometimes to slow. Sometimes the pervading sense of mystery is lost. So if you can't find the Miller/Manning, i recomend buying this disk. The music is good enough to surpass the performance.

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