MESSIAEN: Quartet for the End of Time; Theme and Variations

Amici Ensemble

8.554824

"There's much to admire about the Amici Ensemble's Messiaen. The musicians convey the opening Liturgie de cristal's birdsong evocations with perfectly proportioned dynamics and a genuine sense of a world awakening.
Following a strongly projected introduction, the second movement's slow, muted violin and cello unison lines are hauntingly sustained against the piano's steady chordal clouds. In his unaccompanied third movement clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas' long held notes are amazingly clear and laser-like, while the contrasting sixteenth notes sing out with abandon: a prodigious and moving performance. Intermède is brightly characterized and clearly balanced, although the trills in the coda could have been more decisive and biting.
The evenness and sustained calm pianist Patricia Parr and cellist David Hetherington bring to the sublime Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus is momentarily shaken by the cellist's wobbly high D-sharp at measure 14, followed by excessive vibrato in the climatic measures. Danse de la fureur's assymetrical rhythms are intensely pointed and driven. While the cellist's heart-on-sleeve vibrato above the staff makes the seventh movement's introduction cloying rather than ecstatic, the animated central section is solidly played.
Few pianists other than Peter Serkin, however, play the final movement's motto rhythm correctly, and Parr is no exception. She consistently elongates the first note of each pattern in order to line up with the violin's triplets, an effect that misrepresents what the composer intended. Accuracy, however, is not an issue with the sensitive reading of Messiaen's early Theme and Variations for violin and piano that fills out this disc. Overall, a fine release, far superior to DG's recent gloss on the Quartet with Gil Shaham & Co." • Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com, May 2001

CD x 1

Naxos

2001-04-24

636943482421