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"I speak of faith to atheists, I speak of birds to people who never got up at four in the morning to listen to the awakening of birds, I put colors in my...

"I speak of faith to atheists, I speak of birds to people who never got up at four in the morning to listen to the awakening of birds, I put colors in my music but people don't see them, I am a rythmician but most people confound rhythm with the cadences of a military march." - Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 - April 27, 1992) was one of the most startlingly original composers of the 20th Century. An ornithologist with a profound love of bird-song (he called birds "the earth's first musicians"), he was also an organist - and devout Catholic - who, since his appointment there in 1931, played the great instrument virtually every Sunday at the Church of La Trinité in Paris. Messiaen revered and celebrated nature, love, and the divine in works of kaleidoscopic color, bounding rhythms, and vast dynamic range.

On the occasion of the great French composer's centenary, naïve is proud to release a six-CD Messiaen boxed-set, featuring seven of his incomparable masterpieces performed by many of his most celebrated interpreters, including conductors Reinbert de Leeuw and Pierre Boulez, and pianist Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen's second wife. The featured recordings were previously issued on the Montaigne label, and are newly-available here in this set, at a special price.

Among the highlights of the set is a live recording of Messiaen's 80th-birthday concert, conducted by Pierre Boulez at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris on November 26, 1988. The concert featured Yvonne Loriod as soloist in the world-premiere performance of Messiaen's Un vitrail et des oiseuax ("Stained-glass window and birds") - and two of Messiaen's grandest orchestral scores: La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ and Des canyons aux étoiles... ("From the Canyons to the stars..."). "Canyons" was commissioned by Alice Tully in celebration of America's Bicentennial and was first performed in 1974. The work was inspired by the great canyons of Utah, particularly the blazing red rocks of Bryce Canyon, which Messiaen visited in 1972, and, more than any other of his scores, it demonstrates his deep devotion to nature. As Messiaen once observed, "Nature has retained a purity, an exuberance, a freshness we have lost. I have an absolute horror of cities, a horror of all the bad taste man has accumulated around him. Nature never displays anything in bad taste; you'll never find a mistake in lighting or coloration or, in bird songs, an error in rhythm, melody, or counterpoint."

Details of the featured works and artists follow.

CDs 1 & 2
La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ
Yvonne Loriod, piano
Arturo Muruzabal, cello
Martine van der Loo, flute
Harmen de Boer, clarinet
Peter Prommel, marimba
Ruud Stoyen, vibraphone
Henk de Vlieger, xylorimba
Ludwig van Gijsegem, tenor
Reiner Holthaus, baritone
Choir of the BRT, Brussels
Netherlands Radio Choir & Radio Symfonie Orkest Hiversum / Reinbert de Leeuw


CD 3 Visions de l'Amen
Maarten Bon and Reinbert de Leeuw, pianos


CD 4 Sept Haïkaï; Couleurs de la cité céleste
Un vitrail et des oiseaux; Oiseaux exotiques
Yvonne Loriod, piano
Ensemble Intercontemporain / Pierre Boulez

CDs 5 & 6
Des canyons aux étoiles...
Marja Bon, piano
Hans Dullaert, cor anglais
Ger de Zeeuw, xylorimba
Wim Vos, glockenspiel
Asko Ensemble, Schönberg Ensemble, and Slagwerkgroep Den Haag / Reinbert de Leeuw

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