Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus

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Any review of the Vingt regards should begin 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... — Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 More…

Catalogue No: 3984268682
Label: Teldec
Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus: Regard du Père

Work length6:08

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$1.70

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Excerpt, Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus

Work length27:46

Album only

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

II Regard de l'étoile

Track length3:14

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III L'échange

Track length2:58

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IV Regard de la Vierge

Track length5:15

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V Regard du Fils sure le Fils

Track length5:23

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VI Par Lui tout a été fait

Track length10:56

Album only

Excerpt, Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus

Work length5:50

$2.60

$3.40

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

VII Regard de la Croix

Track length3:33

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VIII Regard des hauteurs

Track length2:17

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Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus : IX Regard du temps

Work length3:12

$1.30

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Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus : No.10 Regard de l'Esprit de joie

Work length8:11

$1.30

$1.70

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

Excerpt, Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus

Work length1:04:35

Album only

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)

XI Première communion de la Vierge

Track length6:21

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XII La parole toute-puissante

Track length2:23

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XIII Noël

Track length4:00

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XIV Regard des Anges

Track length4:54

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XV Le baiser de l'Enfant-Jésus

Track length10:04

Album only

XVI Regard des prophètes, des bergers et des Mages

Track length3:10

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XVII Regard du silence

Track length5:12

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XVIII Regard de l'Onction terrible

Track length6:25

$1.30

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XIX Je dors, mais mon coeur veille

Track length10:08

Album only

XX Regard de l'Église d'amour

Track length11:58

Album only

Reviews
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Reviews

2010

Any review of the Vingt regards should begin 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 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 – may listen openmouthed.
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. 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'; Aimard's prodigious range of timbre and dynamic provide just the sound that Messiaen must have imagined. The penultimate Regard 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 intense concentration, stillness and purity of colour. Could it have been a little slower? Possibly; Aimard's timing is faster than most and a few of his silences could have been held longer but his dazzling technique and fabulous range of colour make this the most spectacular reading of the Vingt regards yet.

Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus

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