For what is unquestionably one of the great landmarks in 20th-century piano music, Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (Twenty Contemplations of the Infant Jésus) has received relatively few outstanding recordings in the three-quarters of a century since its first performance, given by Yvonne Loriod, who would later become the composer’s second wife. Loriod’s own recording, made in 1956 under Messiaen’s supervision, has a unique authenticity, but of more recent versions the two that standout, by Pierre-Laurent Aimard (a former pupil of Loriod) and Steven Osborne, are both now more than 20 years old.
