Messiaen: Vingt regards sur l'Enfant Jésus

Featuring

Jean-Rodolphe Kars
Olivier Messiaen

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Compositional Technique

Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus features four cyclic themes that recur throughout the work: the Theme of God, the Theme of Mystic Love, the Theme of the Star and Cross, and the Theme of Chords.

Recording & Production

This recording is a live performance by Jean-Rodolphe Kars from April 1976, which was the first complete performance of this work in the Netherlands.

Composer Biography

Olivier Messiaen, a pupil of Paul Dukas and teacher of Pierre Boulez, entered the Paris Conservatoire at age eleven and later became Professor of Composition there in 1966.

Composition History

Messiaen composed Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus in 1944, dedicating it to his pupil and future wife, Yvonne Loriod, a phenomenal pianist.

Performer Biography

Jean-Rodolphe Kars, the pianist on this recording, was born in Calcutta to Austrian Jewish parents who fled the Anschluss, and later became a Catholic priest.

Performer Biography

Jean-Rodolphe Kars credits Olivier Messiaen's music and writings with playing an important role in his conversion to Catholicism and his vocation as a priest, considering Messiaen his "first spiritual father."

Composer's Artistic Vision

Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus draws spiritual inspiration from two books, Le Christ dans ses Mystères by Dom Columba Marmion and Les Douze Regards by Maurice Toesca, which contemplate the Child Jesus.