Messiaen: Vingt Regards or Twenty Ways to Look at and Listen to Baby Jesus

By 1944, Olivier Messiaen had gained some recognition across his native France as a performer and composer. In 1931, he was appointed organist of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité (Church of the Holy Trinity) in Paris, and he had composed a number of pieces of chamber music and organ solos, most notably the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time), which he had composed as a prisoner of war (as you can learn in my article here) .

Things should have been looking up for the happily married young musician with a seven year old child, but his wife, composer and violinist Claire Delbos, had the year before begun showing signs of the mental and physical breakdown that would lead to her spending the rest of her life institutionalized. Messiaen had met a brilliant young pianist named Yvonn Loriod.

As far as anyone knows, Messian and Loriod conducted themselves according to the dictates of Messiaen's conservative Catholic conscience until after the death of Delbos in 1959. They did not marry until 1961. But, Loriod became a muse for Messiaen, "a formerly radical-seeming composer who now belongs to the ages" (source).

With perhaps no other outlets for his passion, Messiaen wrote solo piano music to challenge her as well as to show his feelings, however suppressed, for her. In Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus or Twenty Gazes upon the Infant Jesus, Messiaen wrote the "longest love song ever written in the language of the piano" (source).

Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus: Background and downloads

This 1944 piano monster-piece, as I think of it, is one of the most challenging, even harrowing pieces ever written for solo piano. The twenty movements of Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus or Twenty Gazes upon the Infant Jesus run about two hours in performance, so it is a challenge not only for the pianist but also for the ears and backsides of the audience.

There is something transgressive about Messiaen's work, even - as in this monster-piece - when he is most strictly Christian. In this work, for instance, the sheer audacity in terms of its length and difficulty place it in attack mode. It is a piece, however, that inspires great loyalty and admiration among its fans, as mathematician and pianist Christopher Taylor, who has made Vingt regards a specialty, discusses in an audio interview here.

You can download two different recordings of Vingt regards. The recording by Steven Osborne is available here; of one of Osborne's performances of the Vingt regards, it was said "Even unbelievers might have felt like falling to their knees" (source). A recording by visual artist Syau-Cheng Lai is available here.

Notes on Ving regards from the Kennedy Center are available here. You can read Messiaen's own comments on the work here, and there is even a doctoral dissertation, Two Ways of Looking at Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus, by Michael Stevens, available online here.

A doctoral dissertation? Perhaps it is time to share one listener's opinion: "Messiaen is so rock and roll sometimes" (source). And, if you need more reassurance, you can listen to a heavy metal Messiaen performance here.

Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus: Individual movements and videos, 1-10

These links take you to videos for each of Messiaen's twenty movements or regards. Perhaps now is a good time to remind you that "Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus is not translated "Give My Regards to the Infant Jesus" (source). The videos and performances are in a variety of styles by several pianists.

1. Regard du Père (Gaze of the Father) - video
2. Regard de l'étoile (Gaze of the star) - video
3. L'échange (The exchange) - video
4. Regard de la Vierge (Gaze of the Virgin) - video
5. Regard du Fils sur le Fils (Gaze of the Son upon the Son) - video
6. Par Lui tout a été fait (Through Him everything was made) - video
7. Regard de la Croix (Gaze of the Cross) - video
8. Regard des hauteurs (Gaze of the heights) -video
9. Regard du temps (Gaze of time) - video
10. Regard de l'Esprit de joie (Gaze of the joyful Spirit) - video

Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus: Individual movements and videos, 11-20

Before continuing with Messiaen's "towering specimen of twentieth century pianism" (source) and this "collection of visions" (source) with its "Faith, silence, and darkness entwined" (source), I have to ask, perhaps a little skeptically, can we really get all those visions from piano notes?

11. Première communion de la Vierge (The Virgin's first communion) - video
12. La parole toute-puissante (All-powerful word) - video
13. Noël (Christmas) - video
14. Regard des Anges (Gaze of the angels) - video
15. Le baiser de l'enfant-Jésus (The kiss of the infant Jesus) - video
16. Regard des prophètes, des bergers et des Mages (Gaze of the prophets, the shepherds and the Magi) - video
17. Regard du silence (Gaze of silence) - video
18. Regard de l'Onction terrible (Gaze of the awesome anointing) - video
19. Je dors, mais mon cœur veille (I sleep, but my heart keeps watch) - video
20. Regard de l'Église d'amour (Gaze of the Church of love) - video

Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus: Where does Messiaen take us?

After two hours, thanks to "pianists brave enough to enter into its large-scale labyrinth" (source), notice where we end up: in l'Église d'amour (The Church of love). Considering that it may be difficult to tell whether Messiaen is writing under the inspiration of his love for Jesus or his love for his pianist, we may not be all that far from popular music's "Chapel of Love." As a braver critic than I has noted, Vingt regards is "musically astounding if theologically unsound" (source).

As "MessiaenProject," I use Twitter as a blog of my listening to Messiaen's music. You do not have to have a Twitter account to check in on my entries here. I am also maintaining a website as an index of my articles and other works on Messiaen's music, which you can access here. My first article on Messiaen on Associated Content appeared last year, a celebration of his hundredth birthday (here).