This triple album of Messiaen orchestral works, one with choir and one with a singer, was taken from live performances by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, led at various times in the late 2010s by conductor Kent Nagano. There's nothing to indicate that it appears in any way in conjunction with Nagano's 2019 book Classical Music -- Expect the Unexpected , but it might as well have been issued with that in mind; CD buyers get a booklet with a lengthy essay by Nagano on his encounters with Messiaen. Nagano ...
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This triple album of Messiaen orchestral works, one with choir and one with a singer, was taken from live performances by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, led at various times in the late 2010s by conductor Kent Nagano. There's nothing to indicate that it appears in any way in conjunction with Nagano's 2019 book Classical Music -- Expect the Unexpected , but it might as well have been issued with that in mind; CD buyers get a booklet with a lengthy essay by Nagano on his encounters with Messiaen. Nagano gave the U.S. West Coast premiere of La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, and he is arguably the conductor who knows Messiaen's music the best; the three works, although recorded separately, have the feel of a summation of lifelong thinking. From start to finish, they are superb. Most remarkable is Chronochromie, closing the program. The performance crackles with detail, and the sixth-movement evocation of birdsong, one of Messiaen's deepest and most intricate,...
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