Olivier Messiaen wrote several orchestral works while still in his early twenties, and the pair of those compositions included here offers fascinating glimpses of a burgeoning genius constructively at odds with the refinement and nonchalance that Ravel, Roussel or Poulenc favoured at the time. In Le tombeau resplendissant (1931), an abrasively chant-like main theme anticipates the kind of material given prominence in Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964) and many other later works; this well-judged performance gives full rein to the unmediated opposition between edgy aggressiveness (Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring lurks in the background) and the plangent tenderness of the quieter episodes – an early instance of the post-Massenet fervour of Messiaen’s devotional celebrations of mothers in general and the Virgin Mary in particular. Hymne (1932) is less effective, juxtaposing almost Straussian battle music with a musing sweetness redolent of Messiaen’s favoured organist-composers, but it earns its place here in underlining just how idiosyncratic the foundations for Messiaen’s extraordinary post-war achievements were.

As a commemoration for the victims of war, first performed in the presence of such dignitaries as General de Gaulle, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum is a far from decorous demonstration of how the music of lament can be transformed into implacable affirmation by those who genuinely believe in the resurrection of the dead. Jun Märkl and the Lyons orchestra tend to bring out more of the work’s sobriety than its strangeness, responding perhaps to the recording team’s need to keep resonance under control. It would be hard to sanitise this music completely, however, and the compelling way in which the rhythmic buoyancy of oriental dance comes into conjunction with Roman Catholic piety in the fourth movement is vividly conveyed.