It’s always a thrill, and a privilege, to return to Messiaen’s mighty masterpiece. And this new one got me thinking about musical legacy. Without the supreme example of Yvonne Loriod – Messiaen’s muse, champion and later wife – who knows how well Vingt Regards might have fared? And she in turn taught and inspired the next generation of artists, Pierre-Laurent Aimard among them.

Since then, a younger generation has adopted the piece as its own – notable among them Steven Osborne, Martin Helmchen and now Bertrand Chamayou. In his booklet he ponders the subject of mysticism and talks movingly of how his discovery of the piece as a boy proved life changing.

And Chamayou does something inspired in bookending Vingt Regards with Messiaen homages. I was sceptical, particularly about having anything after the final Regard, but he won me over. Anthony Cheung’s piece sets things in lively motion, while his choices of exquisite Kurtág (as tiny as the Messiaen is epic) and Harvey’s ear-bending Tombeau de Messiaen turned out to be inspired. The production values are first rate, too – it’s no mean feat to have captured such a wide-ranging piano sound and dynamic so truthfully and the Steinway technician deserves heartfelt applause.

How to sum up this performance? From the start there’s an easy flow to his tempos, notably faster in the opening Regard than Helmchen or Osborne, and close in effect to Aimard and the even speedier Loriod, though within that Chamayou draws out a more subtle array of colours. The three decades he has spent in the company of this music have paid off brilliantly, not least in the way he reveals the building blocks from which this mighty masterpiece is cast – the ‘Theme of God’, ‘Theme of the Star and of the Cross’ and ‘Theme of Chords’. They function rather like Wagnerian leitmotifs, and Chamayou is a master of pointing them out without disturbing the inherent complexity and richness of textures.

Above all, what impresses is how profoundly nuanced his playing is – holding the sometimes conflicting elements in balance: in the fourth Regard, for instance, the ‘Gaze of the Virgin’, Chamayou lulls you with the softness of his playing, while also conveying a disquietingly obsessive quality. In the fifth (‘Gaze of the Son upon the Son’), even if he can’t quite match Osborne’s daringly hushed playing, the way he introduces the birdsong with such an improvisatory élan is beautifully judged. In the sixth, ‘By Him was everything made’, Chamayou truly lets rip, similar in tempo to Osborne but more trenchant; Loriod, by comparison, almost seems to be doing slow practice at this point.

The 10th Regard (‘Gaze of the Spirit of Joy’) is as fast and furious as I’ve ever heard it – Chamayou’s virtuosity always at the service of the music. This is followed by a Regard that sets off in truly awestruck manner, yet with the most ethereally etched filigree. Just occasionally I wanted something more awestruck in effect – Osborne is daringly drawn out in the famous 15th (‘The Kiss of the Infant Jesus’) but it works because of his sheer focus. Chamayou, more flowing, is undoubtedly high on joy, though.

But the way Chamayou senses connections between the numbers to maintain the narrative is second to none. The 18th Regard tumbles from the quiet and high-lying No 17 into the depths with rare emotional impact, while he takes us from the penultimate Regard (‘I sleep, but my heart keeps watch’) into the epic closing one (‘Gaze of the Church of Love’) with a focus and unfettered emotionalism that underline the fact that for Chamayou this journey is an entirely personal one, and all the more powerful for it.