Visions de l'Amen 21/3/2013

Debussy CD Review: 4MBS Radio Programme Guide

"This is a quality performance, of not technically undemanding works, from a musician we are bound to hear more from in the future."

The tail of a comprehensive biographical review, from Brisbane's Classical FM Station. Listen out for excerpts on their "Under Southern Skies" program.

Alistair and Colin Noble

Review from the Archive: Our first Visions, 1994. Back in the repertoire for 2013

Two-Piano work is well realised: Messiaen Visions de l’Amen
Canberra Times

The recital given by duo pianists Alistair and Colin Noble at the School of Music on Saturday afternoon provided a rare opportunity to hear a unique composition of the 20th century, the Visions de l'Amen for two pianos by French composer Olivier Messiaen.
Composed in 1943 shortly after Messiaen was released from a German prisoner-of-war camp where he had written the Quartet for the End of Time, it inhabits the same musical and mystical world as that work, being similarly based on passages from the Apocalyptic writings of Saint John.
It was first performed by the composer, with the second piano played by Yvonne Loriod, who was to become his wife, and in its conception and execution is one of his most intensely personal works.
Each piano plays distinctive material..... Because of these factors it demands a highly committed and expressively sympathetic realisation, and that is exactly what it received on this occasion.
The Amen of the Stars, a brilliant and vigorous dance, was firmly delineated, while the ecstatic expression of the Amen of Desire was powerfully depicted with keen understanding between the two pianists. There was beauty in the Amen of Angels, Saints, and Song of Birds, in which one piano, in its high register, depicts the trilling of birds over a song-like theme in the other.
The Creation Theme, enunciated at the start of the work and reappearing throughout, reaches its apotheosis in the final movement as a long chorale over which pianistic embellishments appear like a sparkling dance of light.
It brought to a conclusion a performance of this unusual work that was constantly arresting and rewarding.

Tavener's Schuon Lieder.....

A candid shot by Matthew Broadbent of our wonderful team just before the performance. Recorded by the ABC and coming soon to a radio near you....

Review:

American Record Guide May/June 2012

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Messiaen Review: The Courier-Mail

Noble brings Messiaen’s work to life.
Vingt Regard sur l’enfant Jesus (Messiaen),

Colin Noble, piano. St John’s Cathedral Brisbane. Reviewed by Patricia Kelly. Brisbane Courier-Mail.

With a torrential downpour sounding its own symphony on St John’s Cathedral roof on Saturday night, one of Brisbane's most significant performances of the year took place.

Pianist Colin Noble played the Vingt Regard sur l’Enfant Jesus. The audience was small. It was not a night for venturing out yet it was strangely fitting that this work from one of our century’s outstanding composers should share the moment with the saving rain returning life to drought stricken land.

It was food for contemplation. That is how Noble presented the 20 images of the work – nearly 3 hours including breaks...

In Vingt Regards pianism is definitely subservient to the music. Technical and interpretive skill is vital but pales under the contemplative dominance of the imagery. Careful to project the music, Noble did not engage in distracting display.

It was a landmark performance (possibly the first complete presentation in Brisbane). Noble’s response to the varying shades of Messiaen’s musical theology became a splendid combination of sensitivity and reverence, of power and tenderness, dark discord and sparkles of light.

Recording Bach