Olivier Messiaen

[Guest youmustbe]

Even Keith said that his organ record was fucking around.

[A Lark Ascending]

And please name me a post WWII opera that anyone gives a crap about? He's not the only one that's 'failed'. There's a reason why Boheme packs them in performance after perfomance and 'modern' operas are performed at the Julliard school.

Peter Grimes? Billy Budd? The Turn of the Screw? Death in Venice?

The first at least has an international place in the repertoire. Britten operas are regularly performed both in London and by the regional opera companies. Tippett's don't do too badly.

Most contemporary opera (most late 20thC classical music) 'failed' in the the sense that it was too high-brow for a general audience. But I'm sure much of it 'succeeded' in other terms (I'm part of the general audience so most of the atonal/serial stuff goes right over my head). Just a pity it scared off so many from writing for a wider audience and pushed some marvellous composers writing accessible music to the margins.

[rostasi]

This is very nice...

Oraison which was composed for six Ondes Martenot is played

on a Buchla 200e.

Nice simple visuals too!

[7/4]

Olivier Messiaen: Transport de joie

[Van Basten II]

Found this sucker for 100 $ at a used cd store, except for the solo piano material at the start of the set that didn't do much for yours truly, there was plenty of wonderful music in this set, especially orchestral numbers like Turangalila.

Was a bit put off at first by the religiousity of the titles, but once I started listening to the music except for for the pieces with lyrics you quickly forget he was religious zealot and just appreciate the music. To tell you how much I got into this thing I listened to the whole 32 cds in less than 2 weeks, granted the Christmas break helped and did not listen to anything else but still...