Disc 1:
1er Livre:
Le Chocard des Alpes (The Alpine Chough)
Le Loriot (The Golden Oriole)
Le Merle bleu (The Blue Rock Thrush)
2e Livre:
Le Traquet Stapazin (The Black-eared Wheatear)
3e Livre:
La Chouette Hulotte (The Tawny Owl)
L’Alouette lulu (The Wood Lark)

Disc 2:
4e Livre:
La Rousserolle Effarvatte (The Read Warbler)

Disc 3:
5e Livre:
L’Alouette Calandrelle (The Short-toed Lark)
La Bouscarle (The Warbler)
6e Livre:
Le Merle de roche (The Rock Thrush)
7e Livre:
La Buse variable (The Buzzard)
La Traquet rieur (The Black Wheatear)
Le Courlis cendré (The Curlew)

Renowned pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux created a sensation when first released on PENTATONE in 2018, and now returns to the market in an attractively-priced stereo re-issue. Aimard had intimate ties to the composer himself and his wife, Yvonne Loriod, for whom Messiaen wrote the Catalogue, a grand hymn to nature from a man who never ceased to marvel at the stupefying beauty of landscapes or the magic of bird song. With his Catalogue, Messiaen tried – in his own words – “to render exactly the typical birdsong of a region, surrounded by its neighbours from the same habitat, as well as the form of song at different hours of the day and night,” suggesting an almost scientific approach to his subjects. The idea of ‘reproduction’ may have been central to Messiaen’s conception of the Catalogue d’Oiseaux, but in the finished work we hear a great composer at work, a master of innovative structures who finds an astonishing range of piano sonorities. Thanks to Aimard’s ability to evoke this colourful opus, his interpretation has turned into an absolute reference recording.

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This album was recorded in August 2017 in Saal 1, Funkhaus, Nalepastrasse, Berlin