Event Detail

Olivier Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen

Pianists Mari Kawamura and Sasha Burdin perform Visions de l’Amen, a majestic and mysterious work for two pianos that Messiaen wrote in 1943, shortly after having been released from a prisoner of war camp. The work was the first of his many collaborations with Yvonne Loriod, his future wife and his lifetime muse. They premiered the work that year in the Nazi-occupied Paris. This dramatic, almost 45 minute piece, seems influenced not only by Messiaen’s Catholic faith, but also his conflict with his growing forbidden passion toward Loriod, and longing for world peace.

A 2019 Springfest Event