Olivier Messiaen ： Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus Regard du Temps

The ninth piece in Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, Regard du Temps is a work in which contemplative stillness and movement charged with tension intersect. Rather than relying on a clear tonality, its distinctive sense of scale, repetitions, irregular rhythms, and sonorities shaped by a wide register suggest the stretching of time and eternity. The music does not unfold uniformly; instead, its flow is shaped by changes in density and sense of speed. In performance, it is important to maintain precise control of the complex rhythms while bringing out the interplay of the voices and their resonances. In quieter passages, avoid rushing the sound; in more active sections, sustain the forward momentum and convey the work’s broad, overarching breath.