Messiaen: Eclairs Sur L'Au-Dela Illuminations of the Beyond

One of Messiaen's best (and last) works. Which says a lot, cuz the man made a lot of great music! But the way this album (or multi-movement orchestral work, rather) flows, is wonderful. "Apparition of Christ in Glory", "The Constellation of Sagittarius", "Lyre-Birds and the Bridal City", and "Seven Angels with the Seven Trumpets" are among the most singularly great pieces he ever composed.Like his famous "Quartet for the End of Time", this work drew much of its inspiration from various scenes in the Biblical Book of Revelation.To me, this is kinda like what Beethoven's Ninth was/is: a "swan song" of sorts that was/is the best that each composer achieved for orchestral writing.Conductor Myung-Whun Chung is also my favorite conductor of Messiaen's orchestral works, cuz he consistently brings a richness, lushness, beauty, subliminity, and color which do not always come out in performances of Messiaen.

Messiaen's "Illuminations of the Beyond" is an outstanding modern work of classical music; full of interesting textures, rhythms and moods that harken to the composer"s connection to Catholicism, bird sounds and a musical heritage that is rooted as much in the very French and mysterious atmosphere of Debussy as it is derived from the severity of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern.In this regard, don't expect anything along the lines of your beloved melodies by Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, as there is nothing in Messiaen that is comparable. Even so, given an even chance, it is quite a remarkable work taken on it's own terms.Chung and the Orchestra De La Bastille are excellent, as is DG's recording technology.

Beautiful, meditative work with fine performance and sound.

As the product description says, this work has "one foot on earth and the other in heaven." Bird calls, percussion and horns combine with ethereal strings to evoke the mystical majesty of Heaven in might and in light.

I run hot or cold, hit or miss with Olivier Messiaen. There are times when his music strikes me as incredibly hypnotic mysticism and there are other times when my ears rebel against it and it sounds like excruciatingly repetitive austere modernism. This work, "Illuminations of the Beyond" has all of that in spades. Messiaen's religious sensibilities appeal to me very much. His mixture of spiritual loftiness with high modernism is a strange concoction that is totally original. I haven't encountered this with any other composer.I've never been won over to his obsession with birdsong and his use of the brass is distinctly unappealing. But the way Messiaen uses the string instruments can be rapturous. Case in point is track five of this CD, called "Abiding in Love", which seems to be suspended in deep space, beyond human experience and closer to the divine. One can't dismiss music like this with ease even if it is surrounded with a lot of other bits I don't care for. The whole work is over an hour in duration and can grate on the nerves in places. Chung is at the helm of the Bastille Orchestra and he is fully in tune with this composer's work. A real dedicated conductor. Chung's recording took first place for a long while but has had an illustrious direct competitor in recent years. Simon Rattle chose to record the piece with the Berlin Philharmonic for EMI and it's just as good. The Berlin strings can be ravishing indeed but Chung's account is not eclipsed. I prefer DG's sound over EMI's work for Rattle. You'd be well satisfied with either version. In a world full of copycat composers-musicians, Messiaen remained a true original the whole of his life.

Messiaen's "Eclairs sur l'au-dela" (Illuminations from the Beyond) is gigantic in conception in every way. Written for a huge orchestra (with ten flutes!) that dwarfs the ensembles used by Mahler or Strauss, the "Eclairs" is a valedictory effort in which Myung-Whu Chung and the Orchestre de l'Opera Bastille gave the revered composer every artistic freedom to create a big final work. The result strikes me as self-indulgent and almost self-parodic at times, unfortunately.Messiaen's famous musical traits are seen here: the birdsongs, the superimposition of pitch and rhythmic patterns of different lengths, the ecstatic brass fanfares, the exchanges between different groups of instruments, the references to ecstatic Catholicism, the length. The problem for me is that the music itself isn't interesting. I haven't been emotionally moved by this work but, more than that, I haven't been even interested by it. The "Eclairs" in a way seems to have been written by a system, rather than a musician trying to create memorable moments of music. Even after several listens, it's hard for me to point to one exceptionally intriguing or absorbing passage. If I had to choose one, the very slow string section titled "Demereur dans l'Amour" (track 5) would be it; at the end, I did almost feel emotionally transported. So that maybe would be one example - but it's the only one.The performance itself is good. Chung worked with the composer closely during his final years, and has produced a wonderful version of the "Turangalila" symphony with the Bastille orchestra in the same series. He is committed to Messiaen's work and the orchestra playing is technically excellent.One other negative in this recording is very mediocre sound engineering, which is unfortunate because the it reduces the tonal richness of Messiaen's orchestra and flattens the spatial cues important to his work.So four stars. Not up to Messiaen's best music, but a very good effort by the performers.

Brilliant recording. A new favourite!

One has to wonder how Messiean viewed reality! This music is truly sublime and each shifting chord and tonal pattern interrupts one's everyday and forces an encounter with an unameable 'otherness'.

C'est au festival Messiaen à la Grave, au mois d'Aout dernier que j'ai découvert la musique celeste d'Olivier Messiaen.La moyenne d'âge des participants du festival dépassait la soixantaine;il faut dire que les prix des places dans l'église de la Grave n'était à la portée du premier venu....j'ai été d'emblée transporté par le quatuor de la fin de s temps puis par les vingt visages de l'enfant Jésuspuis par la musique du canyon et des étoiles.Eclairs au delà des étoiles est un testament d'Olivier Messiaen que je devais écouter.grâce à Amazon, j'ai trouvé ce disque d'occasion pour 2€ avec 2,50$ pour le transportet une certaine patience pour attendre son acheminement .... et quel plaisir à l'écoute !quasi hypnotique..! le public d'auditeurs d'Olivier Messiaen est un public averti, peu nombreuxc'est peut être la raison de cette occasion. J'ai mis moi même plusieurs années à me déciderà écouter cet immense auteur car "on ne s'approche de Cesar qu'avec crainte" et un certain état "d'écoute".

Ce cd propose une des dernières oeuvres de Messiaen. Elle est très sereine (beaucoup plus sereine que beaucoup d'oeuvres précédentes), on y retrouve sa passion pour les oiseaux et la certitude de sa foi. ( Cela n'empêche pas un incroyant comme moi d'apprécier beaucoup cette musique).Le texte de Yvonne Loriot (sa pianiste-épouse) , très clair, permet de tout comprendre des intentions du compositeur. Et la direction par Chung (grand admirateur de Messiaen) est excellente.C'est donc parfait.

Olivier Messiaen, un compositore apparentemente difficile da ascoltare, ma non lo è, almeno in questo caso. Al primo ascolto sembra tutto molto strano e contorto ma dopo appare tutta la semplicità di queste partiture (oddio non è musica da 'passeggio') come dice anche il direttore Myung-Whun Chung nelle note all'interno del cd. Sembra tutto "naturale", come se la musica tutta dovesse essere sempre così. Incisione che inizia ad avere i suoi anni (1994) ma molto buona. È un Deutsche Grammophon digital 4D audio recordings. Chissà perché anni fa hanno abbandonato questo tipo di registrazione che dava ottimi risultati...Buon ascolto