"The 3-CD set runs to more than three hours of music, and for a listener new to Messiaen or a long-time devotee, it is a superb entry point.
Any review of this set has to start with the pianist. Yvonne Loriod (1924–2010) first came to Messiaen as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, and became his muse, his chosen interpreter, and later his second wife. Messiaen wrote for her hands, and the Catalogue d’oiseaux is among his most demanding piano works. She was its first interpreter, so this is not one reading among many: it is the sound of a piece being brought into the world by the person it was imagined for. You hear it in the playing. The technical demands are enormous: dense, flickering birdsong clusters, huge registral leaps, and long stretches of unbroken concentration. Yet nothing sounds like display. Loriod plays with total command and a naturalness that makes the writing feel inevitable. The birdsong has bite and brilliance, and the long, slow landscape passages breathe. The 1959 sound has the warmth and presence of its era, and the restoration lets you hear the piano with real depth.
The Catalogue d’oiseaux is not a set of bird imitations. Each piece portrays a habitat, a time of day, and a quality of light, with the birds as the living centre of each scene. Across the first two discs, Loriod takes us from the high Alps to marshland, river valley, forest night, and Mediterranean scrubland.
(...)
As always with Frémeaux & Associés, the presentation is serious and thoughtful. The booklet essay by Patrick Frémeaux, available in French and English, places Messiaen in a lineage with the audio-naturalist Jean-Claude Roché, whose field recordings of birdsong Frémeaux has published extensively. Messiaen wrote birdsong into music, while Roché recorded it in the wild, and the essay treats these as two complementary acts of listening.
The essay also gives the reissue an urgent, contemporary meaning. In a world where birdsong is fading, listening to Messiaen becomes an act of memory and vigilance, a way of hearing what was once abundant and of measuring what is being lost. Under Jean-Baptiste Mersiol’s artistic direction, the historic master recordings (Vega 1956, 1957, 1959, and Club Français du Disque 1957) have been restored with that philosophy in mind.
Who is this set for?
Messiaen enthusiasts, who get the reference recording of the Catalogue d’oiseaux by the pianist who inspired it.
Piano-repertoire lovers, for whom this is one of the great monuments of the twentieth century.
Birdwatchers and nature lovers, who will enjoy hearing a composer treat birdsong with scientific attention and artistic imagination.
Newcomers to modern music, since the imagery makes this one of the most approachable ways into Messiaen’s world.
A great, fantastic 3-CD set, and a rewarding one. Yvonne Loriod’s authority is unmatched, the programme is generous and well-shaped, and the two companion works widen the perspective without diluting it. At 3 hours 21 minutes, it is an ideal companion for a long, quiet evening. It is highly recommended, and it deserves a place in any serious collection of twentieth-century music."
By Frankie PFEIFFER - PARIS MOVE
