Olivier Messiaen, Visions de l'Amen

• Peter Henderson,piano I
  
• Jeremy Denk, piano II

"Visions...subject is the word 'Amen,' which essentially means 'let it be so,' although for the deeply religious Messiaen, the matter is not so simple.

In a program note, Messiaen wrote that Amen has four basic meanings, ranging from God's own assent to the act of creating the universe, to human submission to divine will. To that definition, he added 'the lives of creatures that say Amen through the simple fact that they exist,' a group in which he includes stars and planets (which are animate in certain mystical traditions) and angels."

- Allan Kozinn, New York Times