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Discussion: Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus - Momo Kodama

Posts: 6

Post by ramesh June 2, 2007 (1 of 6)
What I really want to know is how this rates alongside the classic Hatto version, as praised in Grannyphone and Classics today. The well praised Aimard version is also on DVDA.

Post by Beagle October 7, 2008 (2 of 6)
I am sorry to read that John Broggio cannot recommend this performance, e.g. "There are frequent occasions though, most easily noticeable in the opening movement, where there is a subtle but marked instability in her sense of rhythm." And I take any qualms John has as the kiss of death. Nonetheless it must be kept in mind that Messiaen's rhythms are not everyones idea of rhythmic, and this work is no exception. Olin Downes described its central theme as "irregularly rhythmed ... the center of arabesques of tone flung about it in a dreamlike way".

Yvonne Loriod's performance of Twenty Views is indeed definitive, since Messiaen wrote this massive work explicitly for her, his student, lover and future wife. I am surprised that its 175 pages of score fit on two discs!

Post by Peter October 8, 2008 (3 of 6)
Do you mean this Olin Downes?

"Symphony for Chamber Orchestra of ... Anton Webern is one of those whispering, clucking, picking little pieces which Webern composes when he whittles away at small and futile ideas, until he has achieved the perfect fruition of futility and written precisely nothing." (The New York Times, 1929)

and you can read more about him in (most of) "Musicians talk" by Leonora Wood Armsby (1935/repr.1969) on Google Book Search. It's one of those prissy, reverential, clucking little books, name-dropping pap about the American great and good, written in a prim style reminiscent of a lady's homemaking journal of the 1890s.

Post by Polly Nomial October 8, 2008 (4 of 6)
Beagle said:

Olin Downes described its central theme as "irregularly rhythmed ... the center of arabesques of tone flung about it in a dreamlike way".

There are intentionally irregular rhythms and there are not - I think you know which type I find the playing to be!

Post by Beagle October 8, 2008 (5 of 6)
Polly Nomial said: - I think you know which type I find the playing to be!
Messiaen says Turangalîla (written 5 years after Vingt Regards) is written "in a very special rhythmic language, and makes use of several new rhythmic principles, including nonreversible rhythms, asymmetric rhythms, augmentations with several rhythmic identities, rhythmic modes, and so forth." -- sounds messy! I conclude from your review that the performance is irritating, and that is enough to keep it off my Wish List; thanks for the warning.

Do you or does someone else have the OOP Erato or Adès recording of Loriod performing this -- or is there an enthusiast with the 18-disc DG Messiaen Edition? I have only heard portions of Vingt Regards on radio.

Post by wehecht October 8, 2008 (6 of 6)
The Aimard version is superb, though the DVD-A is apparently out of print. It's worth searching for, very nice multichannel sound and the whole 116 minute work accomodated on one disc.

Closed