The third volume of Ciro Longobardi’s Messiaen, after the universal critical success of Volumes 1 & 2, focusing on the composer’s best-loved piano cycle.

With his Piano Classics collection of the Préludes, Quatre Études de rythme, La Fauvette des jardins and other shorter works, Ciro Longobardi announced himself as a Messiaen pianist of remarkable imagination and accomplishment. The critics duly took note: ‘Longobardi showcases tremendous technical skill and an exceptional attentiveness… this album is a lush, intricate success—meaningful for Messiaen enthusiasts and enjoyable for those new to his work. I highly recommend it’ (Fanfare).

The Catalogue d’oiseaux continued to attract superlatives: ‘Hs performance makes you listen, through its diverse use of dynamics and the expert use of silences. His playing is concise and bright and is best listened to with the accompanying booklet, in which his notes on the music expertly set the scene’ (MusicWeb International).

Now the Italian pianist turns to the Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus in which Messiaen most successfully synthesised a Lisztian tradition of virtuosity and tone-painting on the piano with his own spiritual and musical preoccupations: Catholic devotion, birdsong and Indian rhythmic syntax among them. Messiaen had lately completed what became a ‘Tristan’ trilogy of works including the Turangalîla Symphony when, in 1948, he was commissioned by French radio to write pieces to accompany a broadcast of Christmas-themed poetry.

The commission quickly outgrew its original purpose, and Messiaen instead created a thematically unified cycle of pieces taking in contemplations of monumental reverence, jazz-inflected improvisations, fabulously intricate toccatas and more. At the heart of Vingt Regards lies the ineffable tenderness of the kiss bestowed on the sleeping infant by his mother in the most famous piece of the cycle, Le baiser de l’enfant Jesus.

As a generous pairing, Ciro Longobardi also includes the 1985 cycle of piano miniatures, Petites Esquisses d’oiseaux, which distil his lifelong love of birdsong into six exquisite portraits. These, like the Vingt Regards, are dedicated to his wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod, who inspired his piano writing throughout his mature career, bringing a cyclical unity of its own to the album.