It's perhaps a little disingenuous to call a reissue Never Before Released, but it's certainly simpler than having to completely repackage the CD, and this selection of rarities (plus Le merle noir) by Messiaen includes so many treasures that the listener, after hearing it, is unlikely to be too concerned about the title. Messiaen wrote La morte du nombre for soprano, tenor, violin, and piano in 1929 while he was a student at the Paris Conservatory. It's possible to trace its lineage back through Debussy's Le Martyre de St. ...
Read More
It's perhaps a little disingenuous to call a reissue Never Before Released, but it's certainly simpler than having to completely repackage the CD, and this selection of rarities (plus Le merle noir) by Messiaen includes so many treasures that the listener, after hearing it, is unlikely to be too concerned about the title. Messiaen wrote La morte du nombre for soprano, tenor, violin, and piano in 1929 while he was a student at the Paris Conservatory. It's possible to trace its lineage back through Debussy's Le Martyre de St. Sébastien to Tristan, but in its melodic, harmonic, and gestural language, it is still very clearly a work of Messiaen's, and couldn't possibly be attributed to anyone else. It's a serene, gorgeous, sensuous piece that deserves to be more widely known. Offrande au Saint Sacrament, for organ, is undated, but probably written soon after La morte du nombre, and has a similar mood of quiet radiance. It's typical of the style of the composer's organ works of the early '30s --...
Read Less
Portions of content provided by Rovi Corporation. © 2024 Rovi Corporation.