This music emerged from horror – most of it was written in a second world war camp; the premiere took place in the freezing cold with guards and prisoners as audience. So you might expect overwhelming disconsolation and brutality. However, the intensely religious Messiaen tapped the sublime. He packed the score with rapture, and that’s the biggest challenge: how to convey clanging images of the apocalypse without bulldozing the ecstasy. There have been dozens of recordings and none has yet got the balance right across all eight movements. This new one from clarinettist Martin Fröst, violinist Janine Jansen, cellist Torleif Thedéen and pianist Lucas Debargue comes the closest I’ve heard. The playing is flawless but still deep-felt, unflinching in the white heat of the Dance of Fury, intently hushed in the Abyss of the Birds, fervent in both tender Louanges.
