Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux

Featuring

Ciro Longobardi
Olivier Messiaen

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Performer Biography

Ciro Longobardi, the pianist on this album, won the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the 37th Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt in 1994.

Composition History

Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, a large two-hour cycle, made use of all his accumulated techniques and materials up to that point in his career.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Olivier Messiaen, the composer, was inspired by three kinds of love: sacred love, profane love, and love of nature.

Compositional Technique

Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux, Messiaen's last piano work, uses almost exclusively birdsong materials with piano writing focused on the treble register.

Performer Biography

Ciro Longobardi's 2019 recording of Messiaen's complete Catalogue d'Oiseaux won the Abbiati Prize, Italy's most important critics award.

Compositional Technique

The composer's work Technique de mon language musical, written in 1942 and published in 1944, has a synoptic aspect comparable to the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus.