Here’s a disc for pianophiles, those with a penchant for the mystical, and campanologists alike. As the song has it, “A bell’s not a bell ’til you ring it”, and here bells toll, peal, chime, carillon and knell throughout a cleverly programmed, acutely played recital by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich that dazzles with its poetry, intensity and clarity.

The disc’s title, Visions, alludes to the hallucinogenic effect of Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen in which bells sound with an intoxicating allure that speaks of a sense of otherness rooted in self-interrogating interiority. In its searching dialogue between two pianos surface religiosity serves as the portal to something altogether more transcendental and intimate.

Aimard’s familiarity with the work is unimpeachable, having played it, he says, “from the age of 15, turned the pages when Yvonne Loriod and Messiaen performed it, worked on it with him, and played it countless times”. More recently, it has been a part of his concert appearances with Stefanovich, and such accrued acquaintanceship pays enormous dividends here.

With due seriousness and gravity, Aimard assumes the...