Messiaen - Catalogue d'Oiseaux – Aimard's birds soar and sing

The Guardian 80

Pierre-Laurent Aimard
(Pentatone, 3 CDs)

Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux clearly means a great deal to to Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who studied with the composer and his wife, Yvonne Loriod – for whom the cycle was composed. Two years ago, Aimard marked the end of his tenure as artistic director of the Aldeburgh festival with a dawn-to-dusk performance of the pieces at Snape Maltings and the RSPB reserve at Minsmere. This, however, is the first time he has recorded the complete cycle of all 13 of the portraits of French birds, divided into seven books, which make up Messiaen’s most substantial work for piano. These discs – marking the start of a new partnership with Pentatone – show the same combination of fierce precision and marvelling fantasy that came across in the live performances at Aldeburgh.

As Aimard demonstrates vividly, the Catalogue is one of the greatest, and most original, of all 20th-century keyboard works. The pieces transcend the songs on which they are based; this is much more than cosy description.