Olivier Messiaen

CD: Chamber Works
Composer: Messiae
Artists: Hebrides Ensemble
Label: Linn Records
CD No: CKD 314
Available: Out now

There are plenty of fine recordings of Messiaen's wartime masterpiece Quartet for the End of Time, but this one sets a new benchmark. The quality of recorded sound, for one thing, is magnificent, especially on the 5.1-channel SACD layer, which sets the players perfectly within a sympathetic church acoustic, maximising both visceral impact and chamber intimacy.

Sound alone is nothing without substance and that is something the Edinburgh-based Hebrides Ensemble provides aplenty. They've been performing the Quartet throughout their 17-year history and that experience is telling in ensuring unanimity not just of technical address but also of interpretative gesture. Their interpretation carries masses of conviction without ever sounding in the least bit unspontaneous.

That sense of intimate identification with Messiaen's idiom also permeates clarinettist Maximiliano Martín's superb account of Abîme des oiseaux, his solo movement. Two things strike the listener here: first, Martín's breathcatching control of extreme pianissimi as the sound of the instrument emerges from a background of total silence; and second, his compelling articulation of the movement's musical structure, which he makes sense of as few other players are able.

The rapt account of the concluding Louange à l'immortalité de Jésus is another standout moment. Four shorter pieces complete a programme of consummate music-making.

Terry Blain

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