The international festival's late-night concerts for a fiver are designed to attract new audiences to the Usher Hall. That doesn't mean that compromises have been made in the programming. In fact, these concerts feature the most adventurous music-making of the whole festival.
Peter Donohoe and Martin Roscoe's concert was no exception. They gave a riveting performance of Messiaen's masterpiece for two pianos, Visions de l'Amen. He composed the seven Visions for himself and Yvonne Loriod (who would later become his wife); they form an imposing sequence of icons, each describing a different species of amen, from the violence of creation to the awe of judgment.
The idea of "amen" - of submission and fatalism - is a metaphor for Messiaen's approach to composition. In the Visions, the pianists have subtly discrete roles to play. Often, as in the first piece, they play seemingly separate streams of music, each having to accept the differences of the other. But they come thrillingly together in the second vision. An image of thanksgiving for the planets and stars, the music finally coalesces in a huge peroration. The diamond-hard brilliance of Roscoe and Donohoe's playing matched superbly the vividness of Messiaen's music.
Yet their performance also had a convincing sense of architecture. The central, fourth vision, Amen of Desire, was the longest and most varied movement. Music of quiet, contemplative intensity gave way to post-romantic ecstasy. The return of each kind of music brought with it an increase of tension, before the movement subsided in rapt reflection. The whole series culminated in the glittering harmonies and unstoppable energy of the final vision. It was a thunderous affirmation, and capped Roscoe and Donohoe's compelling interpretation.
