Messiaen
Barbara Hannigan; Bertrand Chamayou; Vilde Frang; Charles Sy
Alpha Classics ALPHA 1033 (outhere-music.com/en/albums/messiaen)
Sensuality and – yes – spirituality don’t so much ripple as burst in the waves of ecstatic, convulsive melisma from Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou’s magical, mystical Messiaen recording. It is in the imagination of the programming and the bold, almost cheeky intelligence that guides the choice and juxtaposition of repertoire, and the duo’s homage to the greatest 20th-century French composer after Debussy and Ravel.
Terms of endearment and hallelujahs tumble, rise and fall from Hannigan’s pliant lips through the sparkling song cycles. Chants de Terre et de Ciel is aglow, particularly in Bail avec Mi, Danse du bébé-Pilule, Antienne du silence and the ecstatic Résurrection.
The music Is incandescent right out of the gate. And it only gets better with Poèmes Pour Mi before reaching the tidal crescendos of La Mort du Nombre with the eloquent sonorities of Vilde Frang’s violin and Charles Sy’s magnificent tenor.
The scintillating elegance of Olivier Messiaen’s music is incandescent as it comes from an explosion at the heart of the nuclear corona of the sun. The luminescence of Hannigan’s voice gives these works an operatic freedom and scope that makes sense of these fragrant texts and their amplified emotions. It seems unimaginable that anyone but Hannigan, with her lustrous lyric soprano and unbridled dramatic abilities, could give the song cycles by Messiaen such life. She is marvellously served by Chamayou’s shimmering pianism throughout.
