As dusk passed into night and Mr. Aimard appeared in the Spanish Courtyard to play the first installment of the Messiaen cycle, birds were chirping away. To me, it seemed like Messiaen’s music inspired them to join in even more.

The 13 pieces depict various birds at different times of day. Mr. Aimard grouped the evening, morning and afternoon pieces into three sub-suites. The first piece he played, “Le Courlis Cendré” (“The Curlew”), was suggestive of the overall approach Messiaen takes. Passages of bird song break out in frenetic, every-which-way bursts. Sometimes streams of tangled notes combine to suggest piercing sonorities. Chirpy repetitive riffs may sound fleet and charming, yet also manic and a little terrifying.

Episodes of bird song alternate with passages that unfold in thick, resonant harmonies, like dense chorales, or restless spans of leaping cluster chords that seem to reflect the emotions the birds stir up. Early on Sunday morning, at 7:30, it seemed that scores of birds were ready and waiting when Mr. Aimard began the second installment. In “Le Bouscarle” (“The Warbler”), the pointillist webs came so thick and fast that even the most fiercely modernist pieces of Pierre Boulez, a Messiaen student, would have sounded tame by comparison. Yet the piece was also rich with gorgeous harmonic episodes and delightfully twittering runs.