Severin von Eckardstein & Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort

Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen is one of the most haunting pieces for two pianos ever written. Messiaen was better than anyone at giving 20th-century Catholicism its own voice. In seven ‘Amen movements’ he goes through the mysteries of creation and faith, treading the fine line between brutal force and fragile amazement.

Honegger’s Symphonie Liturgique is also a masterful balance of different moods. The sounds of the Second World War resonate fiercely through the work, but even more intense is its profound sense of longing for peace. Dmitri Shostakovich himself thought so highly of this symphony that he made a version of it for two pianos.