Credits:

Schadenbauer/C. M. Ziehrer Orchester

Description:

Rattle & LSO's Bruckner 8 coupling is the quintessential Rattle, Messiaen! Piano by Emaar! Rattle & LSO are increasingly gaining attention, and their new 2018 disc is a live performance from April 2016. The program is a combination of Messiaen's "Colors of Heaven" (piano by Emaar) and Bruckner No. 8. Although it was still before he became music director, this performance shows the strong bond that already exists between Rattle and the LSO. Messiaen and Bruckner share the fact that they are both devout Catholics. Messiaen's "Colors of Heaven (Colors of the Heavenly City)" is a work with piano and winds and percussion that evokes the sound world of a procession of pilgrims dressed in richly colored robes on their way to the heavenly city of the title. A beautiful chorale of winds is enhanced by Emaar's piano, and then clarinet and percussion join in. The listener's ears will be opened by this cathedral-like music in the colors of the Messiaen. After the intermission, the audience is transported to a different cathedral, the world of Bruckner's magnificent and dramatically contrasting Eighth Symphony, played after intermission.In Bruckner, the members of the LSO perfectly expressed Rattle's music, with clear distinction between forte and fortissimo, and even the exquisite pianissimo. This is a clear interpretation of Bruckner by Rattle and a real sense of the LSO's underlying strength. King International