Composer: Murail, Tristan (b. 1947)

The Canadian-born Frenchman is known for his boldness in programming, often presenting both the timely and the timeless in a single offering.

Saturday saw the BBC Symphony Orchestra open their 2013/14 season with an evening of firsts. Not only was this Sakari Oramo’s first Barbican season concert as Chief Conductor, but the programme placed a première by leading “spectral” composer Tristan Murail alongside Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto and Mahler’s First Symphony.

“Synesthesia” is a neurological condition that causes an involuntary sensory experience to be provoked from an initial stimulation of a different sensory or cognitive pathway – for instance, automatically associating colors with numbers, letters, or sounds. Olivier Messiaen, a 20th-century French composer, organist, and ornithologist, “heard” colors in all music, whether tonal, modal, or serial.

Jean-Paul Gasparian livre un récital qui montre une approche pianistique des plus fines. Excellent dans une première partie Debussy-Murail-Messiaen, le musicien montre quelques difficultés dans Chopin ensuite.