Budget classical stalwarts Naxos continue their commendable survey of the music of Olivier Messiaen with a second disc of vocal work, this time the piano-accompanied Trois Melodies and Harawi. The former of 1930 is devoted to Messiaen’s mother who had died three years earlier, the second song of which is a setting to one of her poems. All three are typically unconventional, avoiding obvious evocations of loss and despair; rather, they’re restless celebrations of her spirit. Fuelled by lyrical piano runs and bright, soaring vocal lines, these works hint at the influence of Debussy but are well on their way to marking the composer’s own idiosyncratic voice.
1945′s Harawi was the first of Messiaen’s trilogy on earthly love, a joyous celebration of the same sexuality that Wagner explored, shrouded in guilt, in Tristan and Isolde. Dedicated to his then ailing wife Claire Delbos, this highly charged work employs a range of extended techniques, with large sections of the text in Peruvian, and nonsense phonemes of Messiaen’s own invention. Dynamics range from hushed whispers to explosive abandon, a difficult piece to pull off but one that Hetna Regitze Bruun (soprano), Kristoffer Hyldig (piano) really sink their teeth into. The sensuality is not lost on the accompanying press picture – Bruun riding a motorcycle, Gyldig mounting the rear, a tad racy for the ordinarily sober Naxos.
Joshua Meggitt
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