Messiaen - Debussy: Music for 2 Pianos
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Both the works on this recording were written during wartime. Debussy’s
1915 En blanc et noir, composed during a late creative burst, is his
musical response to the horrors of World War I. Messiaen’s revolutionary
Visions de l’Amen from 1943, written to be performed by the composer
and his teenage pupil, Yvonne Loriod, is a profound religious meditation
whose emotional intensity is overwhelming. The role of the two pianos
is clearly divided. Melodic and expressive elements are confined to the
second piano, Messiaen’s part, whereas all that is percussion, brilliance
and rhythmic development is heard in the first piano, Loriod’s part. Dutch pianist and musicologist Ralph van Raat has won, among other
awards, Second Prize and Donemus-Prize (for Contemporary Music)
of the Princess Christina Competition (1995); Stipend-Prize Darmstadt
during the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt
(1998); and First Prize of the International Gaudeamus Interpreters
Competition (1999). Of Norwegian origin, Håkon Austbø was the first
non-French artist to win the Concours National de la Guilde Française
des Artistes Solistes in Paris (1970), and in 1971 he gained international
attention when a unanimous jury awarded him the first prize of the Olivier
Messiaen Competition for Contemporary Music in Royan, France.