As it’s our last session before Christmas, it seems appropriate to finish off our exploration of pipe organ repertoire with Olivier Messiaen‘s La Nativité du Seigneur – it also takes us firmly into the twentieth century.
The shepherds:
The angels:
The Wise Men:
The Word is made flesh:
Here’s part of a very different organ piece, György Ligeti‘s use of note clusters and graphic scoring in his Volumina:
While Messiaen and Ligeti explored the sustaining power of the organ, it was to the percussive side of that other major keyboard instrument, the piano, that many twentieth century composers turned their attention…
Prokofiev‘s Sixth Sonata in A, Op. 82:
00:00 Allegro Moderato
08:15 Allegretto
Bartók13:05 Tempo di valzer lentissimo
19:39 Vivace
Bartók‘s Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion:
Assai Lento – Allegro molto 0:04
Lento ma non troppo 13:07
Allegro non troppo 19:42
George Crumb: Makrokosmos 1. Primaeval Sounds (Cancer). The sounds Crumb coaxes(?) out of the piano are astonishing; and not all of it emanates from the keyboard…
You can listen to the whole of Makrokosmos, Book 1 (plus score) here.
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