“For Aimard, colour is everything when considering Des Canyons. ‘Messiaen had synaesthesia,’ he explains, ‘and his ability to evoke a combination of colours in his writing is nothing sort of remarkable. The sheer black of the night sky is heard in which there are stars. The rock formations are harmonised by Messiaen finding notes to paint purples, greens and blues. And then his love of birdsong is there throughout of course. Messiaen celebrated the fact that in the Grand Canyon were birds that could not be found anywhere else. All those birds are layered into the music, in piano writing of considerable complexity.’” – Limelight Magazine