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Messiaen
Barbara Hannigan, soprano; Bertrand Chamayou, piano; Vilde Frang, violin: Charles Sy, ténor
Alpha Classics, 2024
The first piece, Chants de terre et de ciel, Bail avec Mi, confirms the breadth of Hannigan’s spectrum of interpretation, which Montrealers have been able to admire during her last three appearances at Maison symphonique (with the OSM, in 2022 and 2024). The Canadian singer alternates between vocalism devoid of vibrato, expressing fragility and wandering, and a fleshier tone, like a burst of vigor. Meanwhile, at the piano, Chamayou graces us with pearl patterns like a painter dropping fine drops of colour onto his canvas.
The first book of Poèmes pour Mi invites us even further to explore new sounds. The piano sets the scene for this acoustic otherworld while the voice begins a scansion, like an echo from the Middle Ages which will follow us until the album’s final piece.
La mort du Nombre opens, in fact, with a violin solo characteristic of modal music, a sign of Messiaen’s propensity to draw on an ancient style to conceive a language of his own. The female voice takes part in this ethereal sound universe, unlike the male voice—that of Charles Sy, a young Canadian lyric tenor with a bright future—which momentarily combines with the piano to form a dazzling, resolutely modern duet.
Needless to say, along with her collaborators, Barbara Hannigan gives us a unique experience, as only this extraordinary artist is capable of offering.
Playlist
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