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Messiaen Vingt regards de l’enfant Jésus: Steven Osborne (piano). Wigmore Hall, 13.12.2008 (CC)


This was not Steven Osborne’s first traversal of Messiaen’s fine cycle at the Wigmore: he essayed it previously in 2000, a concert that S & H also reviewed. Osborne plays the work without interval, so a 734pm start meant a 947pm finish. His interpretation is gripping, however, and the time seemed to be somehow bent to Messiaen’s own scale. This was a fine contribution to the ongoing Messiaen Centenary celebrations in London.

The twenty pieces of Messiaen’s 1944 cycle present huge technical problems and challenges of sheer stamina for the performer. Osborne is no stranger to this hall, and he managed to scale the dynamics perfectly, with fortissimi imposing but not overbearing, and pianissimi that became the barest whisper. Chordal weighting, too, was consistently excellent (something in evidence in the very first piece, “Regard du Pêre”). Osborne’s ability to delineate the most complex of textures paid off richly in both “Par Lui tout a été fait” and “Regard de l’Esprit de Joie”, where aggregations of lines were laid out with remorseless accuracy. “Regard de la Croix” was hewn in granite.

Osborne was not afraid to invoke Messiaen’s predecessors (as in the evocation of Debussy, specifically “Cathédrale engloutie”, in the first piece, of Ravel in “Regard du Silence”, late Beethoven in “Je dors, mais mon coeur veille” and the frequent nods back to the sombreness of late Liszt), and yet the whole felt truly of Messiaen. Birdsong, so crucial to an understanding of the composer, was tellingly integrated in “Regard de la Vierge”, although in the following, infinitely tender “Regard du Fils sur le Fils”, the birds perhaps emerged as a touch too pianistic. Messiaen’s rhythms, so vital a part of his expressive palette, truly danced. Importantly, too Messiaen’s use of bald juxtapositions was fully understood and honoured by Osborne (“Regard des Anges”).

If “Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus” just missed the mix of reverence and innocence it so requires (I have never truly heard this well rendered), the bass-upwards aggregations, tamtam invocations and mechanistic delivery of “Regard des prophêtes, des bergers et des Mages” immediately reinstated Osborne’s affinity with this repertoire. If more outrageous glissando gestures might be called for in “”Regard de l’Onction terrible”, it was difficult to find fault with the sense of the huge that Osborne brought to the final, 13-minute “Regard de l’Eglise d’amour”.

A remarkable concert, and a timely reminder of the stature of Messiaen’s Vingt regards. Osborne’s recording of this piece is available from Hyperion Records.

Colin Clarke


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