One ought to begin any review of the Vingt regards 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 I could well imagine 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 - listening open-mouthed. 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: I don't recall ever hearing those hurtling runs executed more fearlessly.
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' and Aimard's prodigious range of timbre and dynamic provide just the sound that Messiaen must have imagined. It is the same with the 'gongs and oboes, the enormous nasal consort' of No 6 ('Gaze of the prophets, shepherds and wise men'). In the penultimate Regard ('I sleep, but my heart is awake'), Messiaen 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 by intense concentration, stillness and purity of colour.
Even 'The gaze of time' (No 9), that austere exercise in rhythmic canon, emerges as strange but gripping, and 'The kiss of the infant Jesus' is no less sweetly radiant for its florid tendrils being so frankly Lisztian. Could it have been a little slower, still more rapt? Possibly; Aimard's overall timing is faster than most (nine minutes shorter than Messiaen's specified duration) and a few of his silences could have been held longer, but his dazzling echnique and fabulous range of colour make this the most spectacular reading of the Vingt regards yet.
We are spoiled for fine accounts of it: Joanna MacGregor, Peter Hill, Haakon Austbo, Michel Beroff and of course Yvonne Loriod are all excellent, but those who try this one will find that its recording has as huge a range as Aimard's playing.'