Stephen Osborne's performance of Messiaen's most monumental solo piano work, Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, issued by Hyperion two years ago, is one of the very finest available on disc. This account of the two-piano Visions de l'Amen, completed a year earlier than the solo cycle in 1943, is an obvious and thoroughly worthy sequel. Martin Roscoe was recruited to take the second part that the composer himself played at the premiere, when the 19-year-old Yvonne Loriod (who would later become Messiaen's second wife) played the first.
This performance gets the balance between the blistering, ecstatic intensity and the static moments of contemplation exactly right, presenting all the rhythmic and harmonic layers with perfect clarity, while Osborne's accounts of the three earlier solo pieces are a real bonus.
