Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Messiaen: Catalogue d’oiseaux, I-42 (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Messiaen: Catalogue d’oiseaux, I-42 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:32:54 minutes | 2,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © PentaTone

Renowned French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard kicks off his exclusive engagement to PENTATONE with a recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (1956-1958). The pianist had intimate ties to the composer himself and his wife, Yvonne Loriod, for whom Messiaen wrote the Catalogue. Praised by The Guardian as “one of the best Messiaen interpreters around,“ this is Aimard’s first recording of Messiaen’s most extensive, demanding and colourful piano composition.

Due to its radical naturalism, the Catalogue d’Oiseaux is exceptional within the repertoire for solo piano. It is the grand hymn to nature from a man who never ceased to marvel at the stupefying beauty of landscapes or the magic of bird song.

With his Catalogue, Messiaen tried – in his own words – “to render exactly the typical birdsong of a region, surrounded by its neighbours from the same habitat, as well as the form of song at different hours of the day and night,” suggesting an almost scientific approach to his subjects. The idea of ‘reproduction’ may have been central to Messiaen’s conception of the Catalogue d’Oiseaux, but in the finished work we hear a great composer at work, a master of innovative structures who finds an astonishing range of piano sonorities.

In a world that is increasingly being destroyed by man, Aimard views this cycle as “a musical refuge that resonates with an audience ever more concerned, expanded and affected.”

Tracklist:

1-01. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 1, Le chocard des alpes (09:37)
1-02. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 2, Le loriot (08:18)
1-03. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 3, Le merle bleu (13:10)
1-04. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 4, Le traquet stapazin (14:15)
1-05. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 5, La chouette hulotte (08:04)
1-06. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 6, L’alouette lulu (06:49)
2-01. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 7, La rousserolle effarvatte (31:39)
3-01. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 8, L’alouette calandrelle (05:20)
3-02. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 9, La bouscarle (10:39)
3-03. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 10, Le merle de roche (17:43)
3-04. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 11, La buse variable (09:55)
3-05. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 12, Le traquet rieur (08:02)
3-06. Pierre-Laurent Aimard – Catalogue d’oiseaux, I/42: No. 13, Le courlis cendré (09:17)

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