Het Collectief – Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps – Murail: Stalag VIIIa (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:51 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Olivier Messiaen composed his eight-movement Quartet for the End of Time in 1940 while imprisoned in Germany. He drew his inspiration from the Apocalypse written by Saint John the Evangelist, one of the few works he was allowed to keep in the camp. Het Collectif explores this work, never forgetting that it was at the heart of this harsh winter of war, in a context of misfortune, confinement and deprivation, that Messiaen had an angel speak, promising paradise and the end of time… Stalag VIIIa , composed by Tristan Murail, whose title refers to Olivier Messiaen’s place of detention in Görlitz in 1940, completes this programme.
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Lucile Richardot, Yves Saelens, Het Collectief and Reinbert de Leeuw – Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:03:19 minutes | 1018 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
This recording was made under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw in December 2019, two months before his death. A few weeks before that, he had called Thomas Dieltjens, artistic director of Het Collectief, to tell him: Since our concert in mid-July 2019, Das Lied von der Erde has constantly been on my mind. I am totally fascinated by it and discover new things in it every day. It would be a dream if we could record this music with the exceptional cast of musicians and soloist singers of the Saintes festival, and preferably the sooner the better. Words failed, as can be gathered from the many concert reviews they received. Mahlers Das Lied von der Erde is already so much more than just music, it encompasses life as a whole, from early birth till death. Reinbert de Leeuw made of this masterpiece an exceptionally refined arrangement for 15 instrumentalists and 2 soloists. How Reinbert manages to render the full force of Mahlers original score in his arrangement is unparalleled. There is the addition of the harp, some percussion, a contrabassoon and a bass clarinet. With the harmonium as an essential link between cords, winds, percussion and piano. One lacks ears to feel the richness of Reinberts arrangement. This is pure musical delight.
Read moreHet Collectief – Transfigurations: Schönberg – Berg (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]
Het Collectief – Transfigurations: Schönberg – Berg (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:12:41 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Schoenberg’s famous Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem in which a woman announces to her companion that she is pregnant by another man, is presented here in its version for piano trio by Eduard Steuermann: ‘This brilliant pianist, the creator of many of Schoenberg’s pieces, brings the story to life by entrusting the dialogue between the man and the woman to cello and violin alone’, says Thomas Dieltjens, pianist of the group Het Collectief. Anton Webern made a transcription of Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie op.9 in 1923 for the same forces as Pierrot Lunaire . This miniature orchestra, consisting of just two wind instruments (flute, clarinet), two string instruments (violin, cello) and a piano, ‘preserves great clarity in the polyphonic line’. Het Collectif asked the young composer Tim Mulleman to transcribe for the same ensemble the Piano Sonata op.1 of Alban Berg, who himself made arrangements of some of his own works, including the famous Adagio from his Kammerkonzert , also presented in this programme.
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