Love inspired Messiaen’s monumental Visions de l’Amen, composed after his release from a prisoner-of-war camp and encounter with the young pianist Yvonne Loriod. Written for the couple to perform, the suite opens with Creation and ends in Eternity with a long chorale. Its seven visions include ‘a wild and brutal dance of the stars’, meditations on the agony of Jesus, an ecstatic amen of desire, another of the angels, saints and birdsong, and, finally, an amen of judgement and ‘the amen consumed in Paradise’.

Acclaimed duo Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, Directors of the London Piano Festival, preface this masterwork with the poignant duet arrangements of Bach chorale preludes György Kurtág wrote for himself and his wife, Márta.