The “Catalogue d’oiseaux” (“Catalogue of Birds”) is one of the most important works by Olivier Messiaen. The composer wrote the 13 piano pieces between 1956 and 1958. What may sound at first like an ornithological reference work is one of the most unusual and brilliant piano works of its time. The French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is the leading interpreter of Olivier Messiaen’s piano works. His interpretation of the “Catalogue d’oiseaux” is performed in the St. Canisius Church in Berlin. As a pupil of Messiaen’s second wife Yvonne Loriod at the Conservatoire de Paris, Pierre-Laurent Aimard already had musical and personal contact with Olivier Messiaen at an early age. As a 16-year-old, the
exceptional pianist won the Messiaen Competition. Pierre-Laurent Aimard was awarded the Echo Klassik for his recording “Hommage à Messiaen”. Programme: from “Le Catalogue d’oiseaux”: Le traquet stapazin (The Western black-eared wheatear); Le courlis cendré (The Eurasian curlew); L’alouette calandrelle (The Greater short-toed lark); L’alouette lulu (The Woodlark); Le merle bleu (The Blue rock thrush)
In the year of its 40th anniversary, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, famous for its performances of 20th and 21st century music, presented five very special programmes at the Cité de la Musique and the Théâtre de Chaillot in Paris, each one of them dealing with its own particular subject. The single works performed in the 5 concerts are available as 23 individual films. In Flexible Silence, performed at the Théâtre de Chaillot, the Ensemble Intercontemporain becomes part of Saburo Teshigawara’s latest creation. The Japanese choreographer combines the works of two leading 20th century composers, Toru Takemitsu and Olivier Messiaen. Dancers and musicians give an approach to this music as “a sculpture which is born on the spot, which keeps moving and disappearing” (S. Teshigawara)
With Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Jörg Widmann, four outstanding soloists dedicated themselves to Olivier Messiaen’s “Quatuor pour la fin du temps”, a unique work of music history, and performed it together at the “Meetingpoint Music Messiaen” that was built on the site of the former prisoner of war camp just outside of German-Polish town Görlitz/Zgorzelec, exactly where the camp’s so-called “theater barrack” once stood. It was there that Messiaen composed the quartet and on January 15, 1941 performed it for the first time in front of fellow prisoners.
Blissed-out visions of heaven from Mahler and Messiaen: the irrepressible Barbara Hannigan conducts and dreams her way to glory. Olivier Messiaen sends up a prayer, and the skies themselves seem to ring with majestic, multicoloured sounds. Mahler gets inside the mind of a child, in a symphony of blue skies, jangling sleigh bells and sudden, rapturous visions. It’s a wild ride to heaven, and the extraordinary Barbara Hannigan is there to show us the way tonight. As a singer, there’s nothing Hannigan can’t do, and as a conductor she drives straight to the places that other musicians wouldn’t dare. She’s been called ‘an artist who shoots straight for the heart and never misses’, and tonight the LSO’s Artistic Associate conducts a concert charged with wonder. PROGRAM Mahler: Symphony No. 4; Messiaen: L’ascension
