Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus

The Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus ("Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus") are a suite of 20 pieces for solo piano by the French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992).

It was composed from March to September of 1944 following a January commission by Maurice Toesca [fr], wishing for a reading of his twelve poems on the nativity.

These '12 regards' appear to be incorporated into the plan of the final work, which may be described as a rondo in which the movements based on the "Theme of God", no.

[1] Although the work was finished shortly after the liberation of Paris in August and excerpts played in public by Messiaen and Loriod, the complete premiere took place 26 March 1945 at the Salle Gaveau with the composer reading aloud his own commentaries.

They include: For example, Messiaen has written that "The 'Theme of Chords' is heard throughout, fragmented, concentrated, surrounded with resonances, combined with itself, modified in both rhythm and register, transformed, transmuted in all sorts of ways: it is a complex of sounds intended for perpetual variation, pre-existing in the abstract like a series, but quite concrete and quite easily recognizable through its colours: a steely grey-blue shot through with red and bright orange, a mauve violet spotted with leather-brown and encircled by bluish-purple.