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Olivier Messiaen
Live performances by Andrew Infanti
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was a major French composer of the 20th century. His stunningly original output favored keyboard instruments.
Andrew Infanti has selected some of his favorite pieces from Messiaen’s vast piano cycles. (continue reading …)
Amen du désir
Live duo performance by Andrew Infanti with John-Mark Harris.
This movement IV from Visions de l'Amen was recorded at the University of California, San Diego (USA), and released on a Music Department compilation CD.
Visions de l'Amen, premiered in 1943, is a lengthy cycle of seven pieces for two pianos. At the heart of the work is Amen du désir, a passionate meditation on spiritual longing.
Regard de l'Esprit de joie, Regard des anges, Le baiser de l'Enfant Jésus
The Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus (Twenty glances on the Jesus-Child) composed in 1944, is constructed with cyclic themes to create musical and theological unity over a vast period of time (over two hours in its entirety).
Live performance of three Regards… by Andrew Infanti:
• no. 10, Regard de l'Esprit de joie (The glance of the spirit of joy) : Messiaen allows all his cyclic themes to dance together in this jubilant virtuosic piece, a sumptuous celebration of musical laughter.
• no. 14, Regard des anges (The glance of the angels) : Messiaen rejects Victorian imagery in his treatement of the angelic host, and instead evokes terrifying beings of immense power.
• no. 15, Le baiser de l’Enfant Jésus (The kiss of the Jesus-Child) : a large slow movement with the caracter of a lullaby, this piece is based on the central theme of the cycle. The music expresses the tenderness and passion of mystical love.
Le merle bleu
Live performance by Andrew Infanti.
The thirteen sizeable parts of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux were mostly written during the composer’s long summer vacations, whose destinations were guided by his insatiable ornithological interests.
The third work in this cycle (Le merle bleu) centers on the song of the blue rock thrush and its sonic habitat on the spectacular cliffs which plunge into the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France near Marseille. The composer even tries to capture the bird’s blazing blue plumage through a variety of harmonic nimbuses around the central key of A major.
