Tristan Murail

Olivier Messiaen composed his eight-movement Quartet for the End of Time in 1940 while imprisoned in Germany. He drew his inspiration from the Apocalypse written by Saint John the Evangelist, one of the few works he was allowed to keep in the camp. Het Collectif explores this work, never forgetting that it was at the heart of this harsh winter of war, in a context of misfortune, confinement and deprivation, that Messiaen had an angel speak, promising paradise and the end of time… Stalag VIIIa , composed by Tristan Murail, whose title refers to Olivier Messiaen's place of detention in Görlitz in 1940, completes this programme.

Don't let the ugly cover fool you. There's a reason why this album is long out of print. No doubt, the ugly cover has something to do with its demise. But this sinfully delectable album would have surely pleased only the most hardcore matrons of ondes martenot, who usually have coarse palate anyway―and rightly so in my opinion. All of the works featured on this mind-blowing disc deserves to be heard at least twice but the piece by Serge Provost is especially notable.

Wiek Hijmans - Electric Solo! - Contemporary music for Electric guitar (2002) {X-OR CD 012}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 157 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 108 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 51 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2002 X-OR Records | CD 012
Classical / Contemporary / Experimental / Electric Guitar

Wiek Hijmans (1967) has played the electric guitar since the age of eleven. His interest in both classical and popular music instilled a lifelong passion in him for integrating the electric guitar in classical music. Hijmans has been featured at the Holland Festivals Night of the electric guitar, and at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, as ‘the specialist in contemporary composed music for electric guitar’. Hijmans holds a Performing Musician’s Diploma from the Sweelinck Conservatory of Amsterdam and a Professional Studies Certificate from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City where he studied with David Starobin.

"A giant fresco, a kind of odyssey," is Bertrand Chamayou's description of Olivier Messiaen's piano masterwork, Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant-Jésus. Written in 1944, it is a monumental, mystical and iridescent sequence of 20 gazes or contemplations on the infant Jesus. Messiaen once wrote that "The drama of my life is that I have written religious music for an audience that has no faith." Bertrand Chamayou feels that the Vingt Regards "is a mystical rather than a religious experience… It arouses the same kind of awe as walking into a magnificent cathedral or seeing a glorious sunset. You feel that time stops." Chamayou first played the work in 2008, Messiaen's centenary year, but it has been part of his life since he was nine years old.