Chanced upon an electric live performance today of Messiaen's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum featuring the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whun Chung. Maestro Chung is a Messiaen specialist, of course, so as soon as I saw he was in charge of proceedings I knew I was in for a good time, and I wasn't let down - though the coughing from the audience in the soft bits was quite an irritant. On the other hand, it served as a reminder of the dangerous 'aliveness' of it all.
I loved the remorseless onward thrust of this version. You could hear the dead leaving their graves. And the silence at the end, before the applause set in. Somehow it was made integral to the music. What we will be left with at the end of eternity.
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