Milton Court, London
The pianist’s long and personal association with Messiaen’s music informed this sublime performance of Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus
Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s Milton Court recital was given over to a single work, Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus. Written in Paris during the last months of the Nazi occupation, it was given its first performance in 1945 by Yvonne Loriod, the composer’s second wife and, later, Aimard’s teacher. A meditation on the Nativity, it is one of the most intoxicating works of the 20th century – an immense dialogue between Messiaen and his God, at once convulsive, beautiful and ecstatic in its expression of unadulterated joy. Its demands are immense, pushing the pianist to extremes of stamina, technique and expression. But in Aimard, long associated with Messiaen’s music, it finds one of its finest interpreters.
He powered his way through it with a combination of commitment and deep sincerity, breathtakingly realising the sensuousness with which Messiaen conveys his metaphysical vision. A devotional serenity pervaded both the opening Regard du Père and the penultimate Je Dors, Mais Mon Coeur Veille, in which chordal progressions sway and hover in rapt contemplation of God’s majesty.
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