seconding L'Ascension as the one I usually point people towards first. It's early, so it's still got these concise melodies that get caught in your head, but already cosmic and textural and weird
Then if you want to bank towards the other beautiful / tuneful stuff, 'Trois Petites Liturgies' (third movement is the HIT) & Turangalila, Vingt Regards, the early organ works like 'La Nativite du Seigneur'. The Quartet is insane but man seems like a crazy place to just dive in
Or if you want to dive into the more intense / disorienting / textural stuff, 'Chronochromie' / 'Oiseaux Exotiques' & my absolute favorite for stripped down intensity that prefigures Scelsi / Grisey, 'Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum' -- the movement with almost nothing but silence and rolling gongs
― Milton Parker, Friday, 8 April 2011 18:45 (thirteen years ago) link
Whiney strikes me as a Chronochromie/Quartet For The End Of Time kinda dude. Just a hunch.
― the Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Doink (Jon Lewis), Friday, 8 April 2011 22:40 (thirteen years ago) link
lol
― The Geirogeirgegege (nakhchivan), Friday, 8 April 2011 22:41 (thirteen years ago) link
turangalila tbrr
vingt regards / visions de l'amen are my favourites
― The Geirogeirgegege (nakhchivan), Friday, 8 April 2011 22:42 (thirteen years ago) link
dislike Messiaen but fully support your new interest, Whiney!
― corey, Friday, 8 April 2011 22:56 (thirteen years ago) link
actually that's a bit simplified as to be untrue — I like a lot of Messiaen's pre-60s work: Visions de L'amen, the piano preludes, the early organ pieces like La Nativité, and the Quatuor.
Now that I think of it I've felt like I've been so certain that I disliked Messiaen that I'm starting to doubt my judgment. Should give him another try.
― corey, Friday, 8 April 2011 23:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Listening to some piano music: Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux, Preludes, Quatre études de rythme (Yvonne Loriod, piano)
The early Preludes (his first published works) are wonderfully sensual — they have as their ancestor both Debussy's fluid pianistic style and emphasis on the individual "sound image", and the elusive and shifting modality of Fauré's last pieces. The later études could be argued to be the progenitor of an entire school of composition — it's a shame that he didn't stay in this mode for long; nothing he did afterwards matches the intellectual density of these pieces.
― corey, Saturday, 30 April 2011 02:25 (thirteen years ago) link
ChronochromieEt Exspecto Resurrectionem MortuorumHarawiQuatuor pour la fin du tempsDes Canyons aux Etoiles
Meditations sur le Mystere de la Sainte Trinite is a decent organ work too.
― historyyy (prettylikealaindelon), Saturday, 30 April 2011 10:08 (thirteen years ago) link
Have been revisiting La nativité and this further cements the feeling that early Messiaen > late Messiaen
― corey, Saturday, 28 May 2011 03:29 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't know much beyond Turangalila and the Quartet (especially love "Abyss of the birds" and "Vocalise for the angel"), but this late piece is a personal favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rssPmQPPTos
― bernard snowy, Saturday, 28 May 2011 09:27 (thirteen years ago) link
any opinions on the best turangalila set to get? wanna replace a scratchy previn
― night boat to mega therion (NickB), Saturday, 22 February 2014 23:12 (ten years ago) link
Hans Rosbaud/Loriod is the one I have and fulfills my Turangalila needs.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 23 February 2014 11:21 (ten years ago) link
ah rosbaud!
― night boat to mega therion (NickB), Sunday, 23 February 2014 17:33 (ten years ago) link
Antoni Wit
― I sleep with my enemies. They're the ones with passion for me. (Turangalila), Monday, 24 February 2014 02:50 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7pD3Nu0_4
― clouds, Wednesday, 22 October 2014 05:20 (nine years ago) link
Des Canyons aux Etoiles is a good starting point imo, a lot of sides to him in there - dissonant piano, faux-jazzy moments, birdsong, blasts of colour, no Ondes Martenots though, but those huge brass chorales...
Trois Liturgies and Turangalila are good entry points as well - I agree that the Quartet is maybe not the best place to start unless you really want to throw yourself in at the bleak end.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 23 October 2014 21:40 (nine years ago) link
vingt regardsfour rhythmic studiespoemes pour micatalogue d'oiseauxturangalila
― the final twilight of all evaluative standpoints (nakhchivan), Thursday, 23 October 2014 21:46 (nine years ago) link
:D
― Eric H., Thursday, 23 October 2014 21:46 (nine years ago) link
the rhythmic studies are awesome
wanna finally hear some of the pieces i don't know like "sept hakai"
― why dost thou hide thyself in (clouds), Thursday, 23 October 2014 21:55 (nine years ago) link
very seldom spend a lot of time with his music these days but the first two there are the only compositions by him that i would certainly describe as great
i like visions de l'amen a lot but it is a bit gamelan-kitsch
― the final twilight of all evaluative standpoints (nakhchivan), Thursday, 23 October 2014 21:59 (nine years ago) link
Catalogue d'Oiseaux about to begin on Radio 3:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/59gGShVsVZL0ZbgNv5RGVYc/birdsong-on-radio-3
― toby, Sunday, 19 June 2016 03:31 (eight years ago) link
Turangalila Symphony on BBC 4 tonight, sandwiched between a Top of the Pops episode from 1989 and "Sir Cliff Richard at the BBC".
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Friday, 2 August 2024 17:27 (one month ago) link
Sir Cliff on the Ondes Martenot
― Bad Bairns (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 2 August 2024 18:12 (one month ago) link