This collection by the Edinburgh-based Hebrides Ensemble is valuable because it brings together all of Messiaen's mature chamber music. The works span his career, from the Thème et variations and Fantaisie, both for violin and piano, from 1932 and 1933, respectively, to his 1992 Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes, his last completed work. Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940-1941) is one his most important works, a landmark of twentieth century music, and Le merle noir for flute and piano (1952), is among his most often ...
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This collection by the Edinburgh-based Hebrides Ensemble is valuable because it brings together all of Messiaen's mature chamber music. The works span his career, from the Thème et variations and Fantaisie, both for violin and piano, from 1932 and 1933, respectively, to his 1992 Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes, his last completed work. Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940-1941) is one his most important works, a landmark of twentieth century music, and Le merle noir for flute and piano (1952), is among his most often performed. The Hebrides Ensemble plays the Quartet for the End of Time with sensitivity to the composer's long lines and his metric flexibility. They bring a warmly humanistic sensibility to the music, emphasizing its expressively Romantic qualities. The fact that it sounds like a very fine performance of the quartet rather than an incandescent one may have to do with the engineering. The SACD has crystalline clarity and picks up every detail of the performance, and for this piece, that...
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