In Messiaen’s centenary year, there is one work that is the key to any survey of his music. That is the Quatuor pour la fin du temps, composed in 1940 while he was incarcerated in a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland and the fount of so much of his artistic thinking over the next half century of composition.

This performance was part of the Southbank Centre’s ongoing Messiaen centenary festival, “From the Canyons to the Stars”, and also featured in its international chamber music season. For the latter, it came with the subtitle “Mitsuko Uchida and friends” – her friends all being young musicians who have received awards from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, of which Uchida is a founding trustee.