Olivier Messiaen - Twenty Visions Of The Baby Jesus - XVIII Vision of the Terrible Anointing

Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano

This is another of these pieces with a title that is difficult to translate.  In the original it is "Regard de l'Onction terrible".  My first inclination is to translate "terrible" as "awe inspiring.   I don't own a copy of the score - as is often the case with French music publications it is enormously expensive and I've never seen a used copy of it, so I don't have access to what Messiaen indicated as to the meaning of his title.  In the absence of that it could refer to anything from the circumcision to the commission at the baptism of Jesus, to the crucifixion to the Resurrection or any of a number of other things.  It could refer to the incarnation, itself.  I admit that I'm stumped on this one.