Recording of the Week, Marc-André Hamelin performs his own compositions plus Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie

The word 'virtuoso' is frequently bandied about, but I can think of few musicians who merit the term more than Canadian pianist, Marc-André Hamelin. He is renowned for tackling pieces that other mere mortals would hardly dare to touch, including some of the most fiendish music imaginable by Busoni, Thalberg, Godowsky, Bolcom, Alkan, and more. What is perhaps less known is that he is also a composer of many formidable works in his own right, and years ago he recorded his own set of Études, a staggering display of talent both as a composer and a performer (to give you an idea, one of them essentially involves playing three different Chopin Études simultaneously).

Now he returns with a second album of his compositions, largely concerning the concept of variations, beginning with a set written in 2011 based on Paganini's twenty-fourth violin caprice, which has previously inspired (amongst others) Rachmaninoff, Brahms, and Liszt. Presumably written because he felt that the above efforts were all very well but not quite challenging enough, Hamelin offers a dazzling array of variations on the familiar melody.

Despite the phenomenally difficult demands that Hamelin creates for himself, I never get the feeling that any of it is superficial virtuosity for its own sake. It's abundantly evident that there is an intelligent mind at work with a vast knowledge of the repertoire, alongside a wicked sense of humour. This is made clear by the numerous cheeky nods to other composers and genres, not least in the thirteenth variation which plays around with the famous eighteenth variation of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody, or the eleventh, in which Hamelin emulates the sound of someone constantly flipping between different radio stations, lurching fleetingly into snippets of a charleston, salsa music, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and (my favourite one) two bars simply marked "beer garden".

His ingenuity is extraordinary, such as the seventh variation where somehow it occurred to him to style it on a passage from Beethoven's Op. 109 sonata, albeit in a minor rather than a major key, or the fourteenth variation during which he places the caprice melody in the left hand whilst the right hand overlays a second Paganini piece, La campanella (again used by Liszt in the third of his six Grandes études de Paganini).

This is but one work among several on the album, which also includes a short ode to chocolate influenced by Satie, a meditation on the main theme from David Raksin's score for the 1944 Otto Preminger film, Laura, and a toccata based on another melody that has inspired composers through the centuries, L'homme armé. All are a magnificent testament to Hamelin's prowess, and a further example of his superlative performing ability. And if after all that you remain undaunted and are keen to try your own hand at some of his output, then the sheet music for much of it has been published by Edition Peters.

I have talked for so long about this album that I have left little room to mention Hamelin's other release this week, namely his role as one of the soloists in a recording of Messiaen's monumental Turangalîla-Symphonie, accompanied by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under conductor Gustavo Gimeno. Matching the power and dexterity of the orchestra at every step, Hamelin is commanding and magisterial in his cadenzas in the first, fourth, and seventh movements, whilst delicate and graceful in his imitation of birdsong in the sixth movement, Jardin du sommeil d'amour. This latter movement especially demonstrates also the hypnotically beautiful playing of Nathalie Forget on the ondes martenot, an early electronic musical instrument, making (aside perhaps from Elmer Bernstein's use of it in his score for Ghostbusters...) arguably its most celebrated appearance here. It's a wonderful reading that revels in the complex intricacy of Messiaen's orchestration to an impressive degree.