Last Sunday I was outbid on the purchase of a 25-CD Messiaen anthology from Warner, published in 2017. No disapointment: I bid stingy (circa 40 €, less that 2 per CD; it was okay to buy it, but cheap only), and in fact, after reviewing more closely its contents, I realize that I didn’t reallly want it, even cheap, as I already have most of its contents.
That’s the problem with these big anthologies: they aren’t well documented online, and the back-cover information isn’t always very explicit: list of performers may be separate from list of works, making it difficult to know who plays what, and sources are not indicated, making it tricky sometimes to establish which recording of “who” the anthology compiles. And now that Warner owns the rights of the Erato, Teldec, EMI and Virgin Classics catalogs (with Erato and EMI being two of the main discographic champions of the composer from the 1960s to the 1990s), the sources may be varied (for instance, Warner has three different recordings of Turangalila-Symphony, two from EMI and one from Teldec, three of Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus, three of Visions de l’Amen… and five of Quatuor pour la fin du temps).
So I took a couple of days to sort out the contents and sources of four successive Messiaen anthologies from Erato, EMI and Warner, published from 1988 to 2017, and compiling Messiaen recordings from these labels. I haven’t tackled the anthologies from Deutsche Grammophon and Decca (Universal group) – because they are easier to figure out.
Hope this helps the fans of Messian.