Messiaen, Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus

“A giant fresco, a kind of odyssey,” is Bertrand Chamayou’s description of Olivier Messiaen’s piano masterwork, Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant-Jésus.  Written in 1944, it is a monumental, mystical and iridescent sequence of 20 gazes or contemplations on the infant Jesus. Messiaen once wrote that "The drama of my life is that I have written religious music for an audience that has no faith." Bertrand Chamayou feels that the Vingt Regards “is a mystical rather than a religious experience … It arouses the same kind of awe as walking into a magnificent cathedral or seeing a glorious sunset. You feel that time stops.” Chamayou first played the work in 2008, Messiaen’s centenary year, but it has been part of his life since he was nine years old. “It was revelation … I think I can say that the Vingt Regards has played a role in shaping the way I play, the sound I produce and my approach as an interpreter.” To complement this two-hour landmark of the repertoire, Chamayou has also recorded five short musical tributes to Messiaen, written in the years following his death in 1992. They are by Toru Takemitsu, Tristan Murail, György Kurtág, Jonathan Harvey and Anthony Cheung.