SANTA BARBARA — The title of Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus” does not translate easily into English. A common version is “Twenty Gazes Upon the Child Jesus.” But “regards” also implies “aspects” or “contemplations.” One translator, apparently feeling that any suggestion of corporeality would be misleading, simply supplied ellipses for “regards.” After all, Messiaen’s mystical music invites out-of-body experiences.
That was certainly the effect of Christopher Taylor’s spellbinding performance of the work Wednesday night in a new, intimate space at the Music Academy of the West.