Both pianists have the harmonic sense which causes Messiaen's chords to glow like the stained-glass which he numbers as one of the influences on his music.
Peter Serkin's devotion to Messiaen's music is rather like his father, Rudolf's, about forty years ago, to Max Reger. (Inclusion of the Variations and Fugue on BACH at his first Wigmore recital won him an audience which could be counted on the fingers of two hands.) This shows the other side to the young pianist who has recently recorded a substantial number of Mozart piano concertos. His Japanese partner sounds an equally committed Messiaenist. The result is a really stunning account of the cycle. A burning intensity informs it throughout. Both pianists have the harmonic sense which causes Messiaen's chords to glow like the stained-glass which he numbers as one of the influences on his music. Very, very faint echoes and pre-echoes do not really mar an unusually full, bright and rich recorded piano tone, with Messiaen's birds chirruping away in the heights and his sonorous bells and their resonances enveloping the listener as they should.
