Recommendations for Messiaen's "Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps"

[christopher3393]

Greetings,

 

Looking for recommendations for recordings of Olivier Messiaen's "Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps", either CD or download. I've listened to a few on MOG and Spotify, but really haven't sorted out preferences yet. Any explanation for your recommendation would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Christopher

[Musicophile]

Greetings,

 

Looking for recommendations for recordings of Olivier Messiaen's "Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps", either CD or download. I've listened to a few on MOG and Spotify, but really haven't sorted out preferences yet. Any explanation for your recommendation would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Christopher

 

I'm personally only an occasional listener to Messiaen (my musical taste is rather conservative, and I have very little tolerance for atonal stuff usually). However, this piece is really somehow special.

 

I discovered it on Swiss public radio on a very nice show they do once a week, where they take 2 experts/musicians in the studio and let them compare blindly movement by movement 5 different versions of a classical piece. In this case they had the first violin of the Basel Chamber orchestra and the pianist of the Animae piano trio.

 

I'm not always fully aligned with what these experts chose (e.g. my favorite Bach Cello Suites from Isserlis got kicked out in the first round recently), but with Messien I could fully support their recommendations.

 

They have two recordings that came out on top:

 

1) Lars Vogt; Isabelle van Keulen; Alban Gerhardt; Michael Collins. This is an EMI live recording, and is also my favorite, there is a special energy in the live recording.

 

Amazon.com: Spannungen: Heimbach Festival 2000: Spannungen-Heimbach Festival 1999: Music

 

2) Myung-Whun Chung; Gil Shaham; Jian Wang; Paul Meyer. A more polished recording, but also really impressive.

 

Amazon.com: Quartet for the End of Time: Music

[christopher3393]

Thank you Musicophile. Very helpful. Especially because I realized that I already have the Spannugen recording in a boxed set I acquired for other performances:

 

Spannungen: Spannungen: Musik Im Kraftwerk Heimbach [Limited Edition]: CD Music Details: ImportCds.com 4260085531004.

 

I've listened to #2 on MOG and will listen again. It did sound quite good to me. More listening to do.

[burnspbesq]

There is a nice performance by the Hebredes Ensemble that is available as a hi-res download from Linn Records.

[christopher3393]

There is a nice performance by the Hebredes Ensemble that is available as a hi-res download from Linn Records.

 

Thanks. As far as I could ascertain this is the only hi-res download of this composition. How do you like it compared to others? I'm really an amateur at this, but upon listening to this recording several times on MOG in comparison with others, I found the strings were hard edged to my ears. Don't know if that would go away with higher resolution(?). I also found this recording less expressive than some of the others. Overall it did seem well performed and the clarity of the recording makes it easy to sort out the parts. Purely subjective response.

[burnspbesq]

Thanks. As far as I could ascertain this is the only hi-res download of this composition. How do you like it compared to others? I'm really an amateur at this, but upon listening to this recording several times on MOG in comparison with others, I found the strings were hard edged to my ears. Don't know if that would go away with higher resolution(?). I also found this recording less expressive than some of the others. Overall it did seem well performed and the clarity of the recording makes it easy to sort out the parts. Purely subjective response.

 

Would have to give it a fresh listen before I could respond to your comment about the sting sound. As far as "expressiveness" is concerned, would have to know the other versions you've listened to before I could usefully comment. That's definitely an area where YMMV.

[christopher3393]

Thanks for the response. Going from old notes, I found Trio Wanderer's version ( Messiaen: Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps / Wanderer Trio, Pascal Moraguès | ArkivMusic ) more evocative. Also found Yvonne Loriod's piano on the EMI recording ( EMI 20th Century Classics - Messiaen | ArkivMusic ) to be more intense than most. I had a similar feeling from the Tashi quartet version (Messiaen: Quartet For The End Of Time / Serkin, Stoltzman | ArkivMusic), but I think that may be in part to the piano being more forward in the recording. These are mostly initial impressions from someone new to this work, not to be taken too seriously.

 

I've listened to both of Musicophile's recommendations and I will probably start with those 2. Tried the Hebrides Ensemble recording again. I'm sure it's very good and the sound, even on MOG, strikes me as quite good. I'll bet it's great in high resolution. But I still find it harder to listen to than some of the others, and for me, this is a difficult piece for listening in the first place.