Olivier Messiaen - Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (Pierre-Laurent Aimard)

Information

Composer: Olivier Messiaen

CD1:

• (01-10) Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus

CD2:

• (01-10) Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (continued)

Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Date: 2000
Label: Teldec

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Review

At last, the fruits of years of playing the work are revealed: Aimard's Vingt regards are a magnificent achievement

One ought to begin any review of the Vingt regards by discussing how well the pianist conveys the cycle's visionary awe and builds its disparate sections into a true cycle. But here the virtuosity is so remarkable that I could well imagine even listeners with a profound distaste for Messiaen - for whom the 15th Regard ('The kiss of the infant Jesus') is a by-word for sentimental religiosity - listening open-mouthed. Sheer virtuosity is an important part of the cycle's language: one of the functions of Regard No 6 ('By Him all was made') is to astonish, and the power and excitement of Aimard's playing are indeed astonishing: I don't recall ever hearing those hurtling runs executed more fearlessly.

Virtuosity is also desirable if Messiaen's demands for a huge palette of colour and orchestral or super-orchestral sonorities are to be met. In No 14 ('The gaze of the angels') his notes evoke 'powerful blasts of immense trombones' and Aimard's prodigious range of timbre and dynamic provide just the sound that Messiaen must have imagined. It is the same with the 'gongs and oboes, the enormous nasal consort' of No 6 ('Gaze of the prophets, shepherds and wise men'). In the penultimate Regard ('I sleep, but my heart is awake'), Messiaen makes a more extreme demand: that in the hushed coda the player should recall a passage from the Fioretti of St Francis where 'the angel drew his bow across the string and produced a note so sweet that if he had continued I should have died of joy'. Here the effect is suggested not by virtuosity but by intense concentration, stillness and purity of colour.

Even 'The gaze of time' (No 9), that austere exercise in rhythmic canon, emerges as strange but gripping, and 'The kiss of the infant Jesus' is no less sweetly radiant for its florid tendrils being so frankly Lisztian. Could it have been a little slower, still more rapt? Possibly; Aimard's overall timing is faster than most (nine minutes shorter than Messiaen's specified duration) and a few of his silences could have been held longer, but his dazzling echnique and fabulous range of colour make this the most spectacular reading of the Vingt regards yet.

We are spoiled for fine accounts of it: Joanna MacGregor, Peter Hill, Haakon Austbo, Michel Beroff and of course Yvonne Loriod are all excellent, but those who try this one will find that its recording has as huge a range as Aimard's playing.

-- Anastasia Tsioulcas, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10
https://www.amazon.com/Vingt-Regards-LEnfant-Jesus-PIERRE-LAURENT-AIMARD/dp/B00004R7UX

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Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically he employs a system he called modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from the systems of material generated by his early compositions and improvisations. He wrote music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, vocal music, as well as for solo organ and piano, and also experimented with the use of novel electronic instruments developed in Europe during his lifetime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Messiaen

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Pierre-Laurent Aimard (born 9 September 1957 in Lyon) is a French pianist. Aimard studied with Yvonne Loriod and with Maria Curcio, and was awarded the chamber music prize of the Paris Conservatoire in 1973. Aimard is particularly committed to contemporary music. He was the soloist in several premieres of works such as Répons by Pierre Boulez and Klavierstück XIV by Karlheinz Stockhausen. In addition to his work with contemporary music, Aimard has recorded the five Beethoven piano concertos. Aimard has recorded for the Sony Classical, Teldec, Deutsche Grammophon and Pentatone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Laurent_Aimard
http://pierrelaurentaimard.com/

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