Olivier Messiaen

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Olivier Messiaen Olivier Messiaen in 1946 Olivier Messiaen (French: [ɔlivje mɛsjɑ̃]; December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmoni- cally and melodically it often uses modes of limited trans- position, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations. Messiaen also drew on his Roman Catholic faith for his pieces. He travelled widely and wrote works inspired by diverse influences such as Japanese music, the landscape of Bryce Canyon in Utah and the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He said he perceived colours when he heard certain musical chords (a phenomenon known as synaesthesia in its literal manifestation); combinations of these colours, he said, were important in his compositional process. For a short period Messiaen experimented with the parametrisation associated with “total serialism", in which field he is of- ten cited as an innovator. His style absorbed many ex- otic musical influences such as Indonesian gamelan (tuned percussion often features prominently in his orchestral works). Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11 and was taught by Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré, among others. He was appointed organist at the Église de la Sainte- Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post held until his death. He taught at the Schola Cantorum de Paris during the 1930s. On the fall of France in 1940, Messiaen was made a pris- oner of war, during which time he composed his Quatuor pour la fin du temps (“Quartet for the end of time”) for the four available instruments—piano, violin, cello and clarinet. The piece was first performed by Messiaen and fellow prisoners for an audience of inmates and prison guards. He was appointed professor of harmony soon af- ter his release in 1941, and professor of composition in 1966 at the Paris Conservatoire, positions he held until his retirement in 1978. His many distinguished pupils included Quincy Jones, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stock- hausen and Yvonne Loriod, who became his second wife. He found birdsong fascinating, notating bird songs world- wide and incorporating birdsong transcriptions into his music. His innovative use of colour, his conception of the relationship between time and music, and his use of bird- song are among the features that make Messiaen’s music distinctive. 1 Biography 1.1 Youth and studies Messiaen with his mother and father in 1910 1

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Olivier Messiaen

Transcript of Olivier Messiaen

Page 1: Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen in 1946

Olivier Messiaen (French: [ɔlivje mɛsjɑ̃]; December 10,1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist,and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20thcentury. His music is rhythmically complex; harmoni-cally and melodically it often uses modes of limited trans-position, which he abstracted from his early compositionsand improvisations. Messiaen also drew on his RomanCatholic faith for his pieces.He travelled widely and wrote works inspired by diverseinfluences such as Japanesemusic, the landscape of BryceCanyon in Utah and the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Hesaid he perceived colours when he heard certain musicalchords (a phenomenon known as synaesthesia in its literalmanifestation); combinations of these colours, he said,were important in his compositional process. For a shortperiod Messiaen experimented with the parametrisationassociated with “total serialism", in which field he is of-ten cited as an innovator. His style absorbed many ex-oticmusical influences such as Indonesian gamelan (tunedpercussion often features prominently in his orchestralworks).Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of11 and was taught by Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel,Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré, among others.He was appointed organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post held until his death. Hetaught at the Schola Cantorum de Paris during the 1930s.On the fall of France in 1940, Messiaen was made a pris-oner of war, during which time he composed his Quatuorpour la fin du temps (“Quartet for the end of time”) forthe four available instruments—piano, violin, cello andclarinet. The piece was first performed by Messiaen andfellow prisoners for an audience of inmates and prison

guards. He was appointed professor of harmony soon af-ter his release in 1941, and professor of composition in1966 at the Paris Conservatoire, positions he held untilhis retirement in 1978. His many distinguished pupilsincluded Quincy Jones, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stock-hausen and Yvonne Loriod, who became his second wife.He found birdsong fascinating, notating bird songs world-wide and incorporating birdsong transcriptions into hismusic. His innovative use of colour, his conception of therelationship between time and music, and his use of bird-song are among the features that make Messiaen’s musicdistinctive.

1 Biography

1.1 Youth and studies

Messiaen with his mother and father in 1910

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2 1 BIOGRAPHY

Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was born De-cember 10, 1908 in Avignon, France, into a liter-ary family.[1] He was the elder of two sons of CécileSauvage, a poet, and Pierre Messiaen, a teacher of En-glish who translated the plays of William Shakespeareinto French.[2] Messiaen’s mother published a sequenceof poems, L'âme en bourgeon (“The Budding Soul”), thelast chapter of Tandis que la terre tourne (“As the EarthTurns”), which address her unborn son. Messiaen latersaid this sequence of poems influenced him deeply andhe cited it as prophetic of his future artistic career.[3]

At the outbreak of World War I, Pierre Messiaen enlistedand Cécile took their two boys to live with her brotherin Grenoble. There Messiaen became fascinated withdrama, reciting Shakespeare to his brother with the helpof a home-made toy theatre with translucent backdropsmade from old cellophane wrappers.[4] At this time healso adopted the Roman Catholic faith. Later, Messiaenfelt most at home in the Alps of the Dauphiné, where hehad a house built south of Grenoble where he composedmost of his music.[5]

He took piano lessons having already taught himself toplay. His interest included the recent music of Frenchcomposers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and heasked for opera vocal scores for Christmas presents.[6]Around this time he began to compose. In 1918 his fatherreturned from the war and the family moved to Nantes.He continued music lessons; one of his teachers, Jehande Gibon, gave him a score of Debussy’s opera Pelléas etMélisande, which Messiaen described as “a thunderbolt”and “probably the most decisive influence on me”.[7] Thefollowing year Pierre Messiaen gained a teaching post inParis. Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1919,aged 11.[8]

Paul Dukas's composition class at the Paris Conservatoire, 1929.Messiaen sits at the far right; Dukas stands at the centre

At the Conservatoire, Messiaen made excellent academicprogress. In 1924, aged 15, he was awarded second prizein harmony, having been taught in that subject by pro-fessor Jean Gallon. In 1925 he won first prize in pi-ano accompaniment, and in 1926 he gained first prizein fugue. After studying with Maurice Emmanuel, hewas awarded second prize for the history of music in1928.[9] Emmanuel’s example engendered an interest inancient Greek rhythms and exotic modes.[10] After show-ing improvisation skills on the piano Messiaen studiedorgan with Marcel Dupré.[11] Messiaen gained first prizein organ playing and improvisation in 1929.[10] After ayear studying composition with Charles-Marie Widor, in

autumn 1927 he entered the class of the newly appointedPaul Dukas. Messiaen’s mother died of tuberculosisshortly before the class began.[12] Despite his grief, he re-sumed his studies, and in 1930 Messiaen won first prizein composition.[10]

While a student he composed his first published works—his eight Préludes for piano (the earlier Le banquetcéleste was published subsequently). These exhibitMessiaen’s use of his modes of limited transpositionand palindromic rhythms (Messiaen called these non-retrogradable rhythms). His public début came in 1931with his orchestral suite Les offrandes oubliées. That yearhe first heard a gamelan group, sparking his interest in theuse of tuned percussion.[13]

1.2 La Trinité, La jeune France, and Mes-siaen’s war

Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, where Messiaen was titular or-ganist for 61 years

In the autumn of 1927, Messiaen joined Dupré's or-gan course. Dupré later wrote that Messiaen, havingnever seen an organ console, sat quietly for an hour whileDupré explained and demonstrated the instrument, andthen came back a week later to play Johann SebastianBach's Fantasia in C minor to an impressive standard.[14]From 1929, Messiaen regularly deputised at the Églisede la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, for the organist Charles Quef,who was ill at the time. The post became vacant in

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1.3 Tristan and serialism 3

1931 when Quef died, and Dupré, Charles Tournemireand Widor among others supported Messiaen’s candi-dacy. His formal application included a letter of recom-mendation fromWidor. The appointment was confirmedin 1931,[15] and he remained the organist at the churchfor more than sixty years.[16] He also assumed a post atthe Schola Cantorum de Paris in the early 1930s.[17] In1932, he composed the Apparition de l'eglise eternelle fororgan.

Messiaen in 1930

Hemarried the violinist and composer Claire Delbos alsoin 1932. Their marriage inspired him to both composeworks for her to play (Thème et variations for violin andpiano in the year they were married) and to write piecesto celebrate their domestic happiness, including the songcycle Poèmes pour Mi in 1936, which he orchestrated in1937. Mi was Messiaen’s affectionate nickname for hiswife.[18] In 1937 their son Pascal was born.[19] The mar-riage turned to tragedy when Delbos lost her memory af-ter an operation and spent the rest of her life in mentalinstitutions.[20]

In 1936, along with André Jolivet, Daniel-Lesur and YvesBaudrier, Messiaen formed the group La jeune France(“Young France”). Their manifesto implicitly attackedthe frivolity predominant in contemporary Parisian musicand rejected Jean Cocteau's 1918 Le coq et l'arlequin infavour of a “living music, having the impetus of sincerity,generosity and artistic conscientiousness”.[21] Messiaen’scareer soon departed from this polemical phase.In response to a commission for a piece to accompany

light-and-water shows on the Seine during the Paris Expo-sition, in 1937 Messiaen demonstrated his interest in us-ing the ondesMartenot, an electronic instrument, by com-posing Fêtes des belles eaux for an ensemble of six.[22] Heincluded a part for the instrument in several of his subse-quent compositions.[23] During this period he composedseveral multi-movement organ works. He arranged hisorchestral suite L'ascension (“The Ascension”) for organ,replacing the orchestral version’s third movement with anentirely new movement, Transports de joie d'une âme de-vant la gloire du Christ qui est la sienne (“Ecstasies of asoul before the glory of Christ which is the soul’s own”)( listen ).[24] He also wrote the extensive cycles La Na-tivité du Seigneur (“The Nativity of the Lord”) and Lescorps glorieux (“The glorious bodies”).[25]

At the outbreak of World War II, Messiaen was draftedinto the French army. Due to poor eyesight, he wasenlisted as a medical auxiliary rather than an activecombatant.[26] He was captured at Verdun and taken toGörlitz in May 1940, and was imprisoned at Stalag VIII-A. He met a violinist, a cellist and a clarinettist among hisfellow prisoners. He wrote a trio for them, which he grad-ually incorporated into his Quatuor pour la fin du temps(“Quartet for the End of Time”). The Quartet was firstperformed in January 1941 to an audience of prisonersand prison guards, with the composer playing a poorlymaintained upright piano in freezing conditions.[27] Thusthe enforced introspection and reflection of camp lifebore fruit in one of 20th-century European classical mu-sic’s acknowledged masterpieces. The title’s “end oftime” alludes to the Apocalypse, and also to the way inwhichMessiaen, through rhythm and harmony, used timein a manner completely different from his predecessorsand contemporaries.[28]

1.3 Tristan and serialism

See also: List of students of Olivier Messiaen

Shortly after his release from Görlitz in May 1941, Mes-siaen was appointed a professor of harmony at the ParisConservatoire, where he taught until his retirement in1978.[29] He compiled his Technique de mon langage mu-sical (“Technique of my musical language”) publishedin 1944, in which he quotes many examples from hismusic, particularly the Quartet.[30] Although only in hismid-thirties, his students described him as an outstandingteacher.[31] Among his early students were the composersPierre Boulez and Karel Goeyvaerts. Other pupils in-cluded Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1952, Alexander Goehrin 1956–57, Tristan Murail in 1967–72 and George Ben-jamin during the late 1970s.[32] The Greek composerIannis Xenakis was referred to him in 1951; Messiaenurged Xenakis to take advantage of his background inmathematics and architecture in his music.[33]

In 1943, Messiaen wrote Visions de l'Amen (“Visions of

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the Amen”) for two pianos for Yvonne Loriod and him-self to perform. Shortly thereafter he composed the enor-mous solo piano cycle Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus(“Twenty gazes upon the child Jesus”) for her.[34] Againfor Loriod, he wrote Trois petites liturgies de la présencedivine (“Three small liturgies of the Divine Presence”)for female chorus and orchestra which includes a diffi-cult solo piano part.[35]

Two years after Visions de l'Amen, Messiaen composedthe song cycle Harawi, the first of three works inspiredby the legend of Tristan and Isolde. The second of theseworks about human (as opposed to divine) love was theresult of a commission from Serge Koussevitzky. Messi-aen stated that the commission did not specify the lengthof the work or the size of the orchestra. This was theten-movement Turangalîla-Symphonie. It is not a con-ventional symphony, but rather an extended meditationon the joy of human union and love. It does not con-tain the sexual guilt inherent in Richard Wagner's Tristanund Isolde because Messiaen believed that sexual loveis a divine gift.[26] The third piece inspired by the Tris-tan myth was Cinq rechants for twelve unaccompaniedsingers, described by Messiaen as influenced by the albaof the troubadours.[36] Messiaen visited the United Statesin 1949, where his music was conducted by Koussevitskyand Leopold Stokowski. His Turangalîla-Symphonie wasfirst performed in the US in 1949, conducted by LeonardBernstein.[37]

Messiaen taught an analysis class at the Paris Conser-vatoire. In 1947 he taught (and performed with Lo-riod) for two weeks in Budapest.[38] In 1949 he taughtat Tanglewood.[39] Beginning in summer 1949 he taughtin the new music summer school classes at Darmstadt.[40]While he did not employ the twelve-tone technique, afterthree years teaching analysis of twelve-tone scores, in-cluding works by Arnold Schoenberg, he experimentedwith ways of making scales of other elements (includ-ing duration, articulation and dynamics) analogous to thechromatic pitch scale. The results of these innovationswas the “Mode de valeurs et d'intensités” for piano (fromthe Quatre études de rythme)[41] which has been mislead-ingly described as the first work of total serialism. It had alarge influence on the earliest European serial composersincluding Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen.[42]During this period he also experimented with musiqueconcrète, music for recorded sounds.[43]

1.4 Birdsong and the 1960s

When in 1952 Messiaen was asked to provide a test piecefor flautists wishing to enter the Paris Conservatoire, hecomposed the piece Le merle noir for flute and piano.While he had long been fascinated by birdsong, and birdshad made appearances in several of his earlier works (forexample La Nativité, Quatuor andVingt regards), the flutepiece was based entirely on the song of the blackbird.[44]

He took this development to a new level with his 1953orchestral work Réveil des oiseaux—its material con-sists almost entirely of the birdsong one might hear be-tween midnight and noon in the Jura.[45] From this pe-riod onwards, Messiaen incorporated birdsong into all ofhis compositions and composed several works for whichbirds provide both the title and subject matter (for exam-ple the collection of thirteen pieces for piano Catalogued'oiseaux completed in 1958, and La fauvette des jardinsof 1971).[46] Paul Griffiths observed that Messiaen was amore conscientious ornithologist than any previous com-poser, and a more musical observer of birdsong than anyprevious ornithologist.[47]

The garden warbler provided the title and much of the materialfor Messiaen’s La fauvette des jardins.

Messiaen’s first wife died in 1959 after a long illness, andin 1961 he married Loriod.[48] He began to travel widely,to attendmusical events and to seek out and transcribe thesongs of more exotic birds in the wild. Loriod frequentlyassisted her husband’s detailed studies of birdsong whilewalking with him, by making tape recordings for laterreference.[49] In 1962 he visited Japan, where Gagakumusic and Noh theatre inspired the orchestral “Japanesesketches”, Sept haïkaï, which contain stylised imitationsof traditional Japanese instruments.[50]

Messiaen’s music was by this time championed by,among others, Pierre Boulez, who programmed firstperformances at his Domaine musical concerts and theDonaueschingen festival.[51] Works performed includedRéveil des oiseaux, Chronochromie (commissioned for the1960 festival) and Couleurs de la cité céleste. The lat-ter piece was the result of a commission for a compo-sition for three trombones and three xylophones; Messi-aen added to this more brass, wind, percussion and pi-ano, and specified a xylophone, xylorimba and marimbarather than three xylophones.[52] Another work of thisperiod, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, was com-missioned as a commemoration of the dead of the twoWorldWars and was performed first semi-privately in the

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Sainte-Chapelle, then publicly in Chartres Cathedral withCharles de Gaulle in the audience.[53]

His reputation as a composer continued to grow and in1959, he was nominated as an Officier of the Légiond'honneur.[54] In 1966 he was officially appointed profes-sor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire, although hehad in effect been teaching composition for years.[55] Fur-ther honours included election to the Institut de Francein 1967 and the Académie des beaux-arts in 1968, theErasmus Prize in 1971, the award of the Royal Philhar-monic Society Gold Medal and the Ernst von SiemensMusic Prize in 1975, the Sonning Award (Denmark’shighest musical honour) in 1977, the Wolf Prize in Artsin 1982, and the presentation of the Croix de Commanderof the Belgian Order of the Crown in 1980.[56]

1.5 Transfiguration, Canyons, St. Francis,and the Beyond

Messiaen’s next work was the large-scale La Transfig-uration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. The compo-sition occupied him from 1965 to 1969 and the mu-sicians employed include a 100-voice ten-part choir,seven solo instruments and large orchestra. Its four-teen movements are a meditation on the story of Christ’sTransfiguration.[57] Shortly after its completion, Messi-aen received a commission fromAlice Tully for a work tocelebrate the U.S. bicentennial. He arranged a visit to theUS in spring 1972, and was inspired by Bryce Canyon inUtah, where he observed the canyon’s distinctive coloursand birdsong.[58] The twelve-movement orchestral pieceDes canyons aux étoiles... was the result, first performedin 1974 in New York.[59]

In 1971, he was asked to compose a piece for theParis Opéra. While reluctant to undertake such a majorproject, he was persuaded in 1975 to accept the commis-sion and began work on his Saint-François d'Assise. Thecomposition was intensive (he also wrote his own libretto)and occupied him from 1975 to 1979; the orchestrationwas carried out from 1979 until 1983.[60] Messiaen pre-ferred to describe the final work as a “spectacle” ratherthan an opera. It was first performed in 1983. Some com-mentators at the time thought that the opera would be hisvalediction (at times Messiaen himself believed so),[61]but he continued to compose. In 1984 he published a ma-jor collection of organ pieces, Livre du Saint Sacrement;other works include birdsong pieces for solo piano, andworks for piano with orchestra.[62]

In the summer of 1978, Messiaen retired from teach-ing at the Conservatoire. He was promoted to the high-est rank of the Légion d'honneur, the Grand-Croix, in1987.[63] An operation prevented his participation in thecelebration of his 70th birthday in 1978,[64] but in 1988tributes for Messiaen’s 80th included a complete perfor-mance in London’s Royal Festival Hall of St. François,which the composer attended,[65] and Erato's publication

of a seventeen-CD collection of Messiaen’s music includ-ing a disc of the composer in conversation with ClaudeSamuel.[66]

Although in considerable pain near the end of his life (re-quiring repeated surgery on his back)[67] he was able tofulfil a commission from the NewYork Philharmonic Or-chestra, Éclairs sur l'au-delà..., which was premièred sixmonths after his death. He died in Paris on April 27,1992.[68]

On going through his papers, Loriod discovered that, inthe last months of his life, he had been composing aconcerto for four musicians he felt particularly gratefulto, namely herself, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, theoboist Heinz Holliger and the flautist Catherine Cantin(hence the title Concert à quatre). Four of the five in-tended movements were substantially complete; YvonneLoriod undertook the orchestration of the second half ofthe first movement and of the whole of the fourth withadvice from George Benjamin. It was premiered by thededicatees in September 1994.[69]

2 Music

Messiaen’s music has been described as outside the west-ern musical tradition, although growing out of that tra-dition and being influenced by it.[70] Much of his out-put denies the western conventions of forward motion,development and diatonic harmonic resolution. This ispartly due to the symmetries of his technique—for in-stance the modes of limited transposition do not ad-mit the conventional cadences found in western classicalmusic.[71]

His youthful love for the fairy-tale element in Shake-speare prefigured his later expressions of Catholicliturgy.[72] Messiaen was not interested in depicting as-pects of theology such as sin;[73] rather he concentratedon the theology of joy, divine love and redemption.[74]

Messiaen continually evolved new composition tech-niques, always integrating them into his existing musi-cal style; his final works still retain the use of modesof limited transposition.[71] For many commentators thiscontinual development made every major work from theQuatuor onwards a conscious summation of all that Mes-siaen had composed up to that time. However, very fewof these major works lack new technical ideas—simpleexamples being the introduction of communicable lan-guage in Meditations, the invention of a new percussioninstrument (the geophone) for Des canyons aux etoiles...,and the freedom from any synchronisation with the mainpulse of individual parts in certain birdsong episodes ofSt. François d'Assise.[75]

As well as discovering new techniques, Messiaen foundand absorbed exotic music, including Ancient Greekrhythms,[10] Hindu rhythms (he encountered Śārṅ-gadeva’s list of 120 rhythmic units, the deçî-tâlas),[76]

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Example 1. A page from Oiseaux exotiques. It illustratesMessiaen’s use of ancient and exotic rhythms (in the percussionnear the bottom of the score "Asclepiad" and "Sapphic" are an-cient Greek rhythms, and Nibçankalîla is a decî-tâla from Śārṅ-gadeva). It also illustrates Messiaen’s precision in notating bird-song: the birds identified here are the white-crested laughingthrush (garralaxe à huppe blanche) in the brass and wind in-struments, and the orchard oriole (troupiale des vergers) playedon the xylophone.

Balinese and Javanese Gamelan, birdsong, and Japanesemusic (see Example 1 for an instance of his use of ancientGreek and Hindu rhythms).[77]

While he was instrumental in the academic exploration ofhis techniques (he compiled two treatises: the later one infive volumes was substantially complete when he died andwas published posthumously), and was himself a mas-ter of music analysis, he considered the development andstudy of techniques to be a means to intellectual, aestheticand emotional ends. Thus Messiaen maintained that amusical composition must be measured against three sep-arate criteria: it must be interesting, beautiful to listen to,and it must touch the listener.[78]

Messiaen wrote a large body of music for the piano. Al-though a considerable pianist himself, he was undoubt-edly assisted by Yvonne Loriod’s formidable piano tech-nique and ability to convey complex rhythms and rhyth-mic combinations; in his piano writing from Visions del'Amen onwards he had her in mind. Messiaen said, “I amable to allow myself the greatest eccentricities because toher anything is possible.”[79]

2.1 Western artistic influences

Developments in modern French music were a major in-fluence onMessiaen, particularly themusic of ClaudeDe-bussy and his use of the whole-tone scale (which Mes-siaen called Mode 1 in his modes of limited transposi-tion). Messiaen very rarely used the whole-tone scalein his compositions because, he said, after Debussy andDukas there was “nothing to add”,[80] but the modes hedid use are all similarly symmetrical.Messiaen had a great admiration for the music of IgorStravinsky, particularly the use of rhythm in earlier workssuch as The Rite of Spring, and his use of colour. He wasfurther influenced by the orchestral brilliance of HeitorVilla-Lobos, who lived in Paris in the 1920s and gaveacclaimed concerts there. Among composers for thekeyboard, Messiaen singled out Jean-Philippe Rameau,Domenico Scarlatti, Frédéric Chopin, Debussy and IsaacAlbéniz.[79] He loved the music of Modest Mussorgskyand incorporated varied modifications of what he calledthe “M-shaped” melodic motif from Mussorgsky’s BorisGodunov,[80] although he modified the final interval inthis motif from a perfect fourth to a tritone (Example3).[81]

Messiaen was further influenced by Surrealism, as maybe seen from the titles of some of the piano Préludes (Unreflet dans le vent..., “A reflection in the wind”)[82] and insome of the imagery of his poetry (he published poemsas prefaces to certain works, for example Les offrandesoubliées).[83]

2.2 Colour

Colour lies at the heart of Messiaen’s music. He be-lieved that terms such as "tonal", "modal" and "serial"are misleading analytical conveniences.[84] For him therewere no modal, tonal or serial compositions, only mu-sic with or without colour.[85] He said that Claudio Mon-teverdi, Mozart, Chopin, Richard Wagner, Mussorgskyand Stravinsky all wrote strongly coloured music.[86]

In certain of Messiaen’s scores, he notated the coloursin the music (notably in Couleurs de la cité céleste andDes canyons aux étoiles...)—the purpose being to aid theconductor in interpretation rather than to specify whichcolours the listener should experience. The importanceof colour is linked to Messiaen’s synaesthesia, which hesaid caused him to experience colours when he heardor imagined music (he said that he did not perceive thecolours visually). In his multi-volume music theory trea-tise Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d'ornithologie (“Trea-tise of Rhythm, Colour and Birdsong”), Messiaen wrotedescriptions of the colours of certain chords. His de-scriptions range from the simple (“gold and brown”) tothe highly detailed (“blue-violet rocks, speckled with littlegrey cubes, cobalt blue, deep Prussian blue, highlightedby a bit of violet-purple, gold, red, ruby, and stars of

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mauve, black and white. Blue-violet is dominant”).[87]

When asked what Messiaen’s main influence had been oncomposers, George Benjamin said, “I think the sheer ...colour has been so influential, ... rather than being a dec-orative element, [Messiaen showed that colour] could bea structural, a fundamental element, ... the fundamentalmaterial of the music itself.”[88]

2.3 Symmetry

Many of Messiaen’s composition techniques made use ofsymmetries of time and pitch.[89]

2.3.1 Time

Example 2. The first bar of the piano Prélude, Instants défunts.An early example of Messiaen’s use of palindromic rhythms(which he called non-retrogradable rhythms).

From his earliest works, Messiaen used non-retrogradable (palindromic) rhythms (Example 2).He sometimes combined rhythms with harmonic se-quences in such a way that if the process were allowedto proceed indefinitely the music would eventually runthrough all the possible permutations and return to itsstarting point. For Messiaen, this represented the “charmof impossibilities” of these processes. He only everpresented a portion of any such process, as if allowingthe informed listener a glimpse of something eternal. Inthe first movement of Quatuor pour la fin du temps thepiano and cello together provide an early example.[90]

2.3.2 Pitch

Messiaen used modes which he called modes of lim-ited transposition.[71] They are distinguished as groups ofnotes which can only be transposed by a semitone a lim-ited number of times. For example, the whole-tone scale(Messiaen’s Mode 1) only exists in two transpositions:namely C–D–E–F♯–G♯–A♯ and D♭–E♭–F–G–A–B.Mes-siaen abstracted these modes from the harmony of hisimprovisations and early works.[91] Music written usingthe modes avoids conventional diatonic harmonic pro-gressions, since for exampleMessiaen’sMode 2 (identicalto the octatonic scale used also by other composers) per-

mits precisely the dominant seventh chords whose tonicthe mode does not contain.[92]

2.4 Time and rhythm

Example 3. An excerpt from Danse de la fureur, pour les septtrompettes from the Quatuor pour la fin du temps. It illustratesMessiaen’s use of additive rhythms—in this example the additionof unpaired semiquavers (sixteenth notes) to an underlying qua-ver (eighth note) pulse and the lengthening of the final quaver byaddition of a dot. It illustrates the use of what Messiaen calledthe Boris M-shaped motif (the last five notes of the excerpt).

As well as making use of non-retrogradable rhythm andthe Hindu decî-tâlas, Messiaen also composed with “ad-ditive” rhythms. This involves lengthening individualnotes slightly or interpolating a short note into an oth-erwise regular rhythm (see Example 3), or shorteningor lengthening every note of a rhythm by the same du-ration (adding a semiquaver to every note in a rhythmon its repeat, for example).[93] This led Messiaen to userhythmic cells that irregularly alternate between two andthree units, a process which also occurs in Stravinsky’sThe Rite of Spring, which Messiaen admired.[94]

A factor that contributes to Messiaen’s suspension of theconventional perception of time in his music is the ex-tremely slow tempos he often specifies (the fifth move-ment Louange à l'eternité de Jésus of Quatuor is actuallygiven the tempo marking infiniment lent).[95] Messiaenalso used the concept of “chromatic durations”, for ex-ample in his Soixante-quatre durées from Livre d'orgue( listen ), which is built from, in Messiaen’s words,“64 chromatic durations from 1 to 64 demisemiquavers[thirty-second notes]—invested in groups of 4, from theends to the centre, forwards and backwards alternately—treated as a retrograde canon. The whole peopled withbirdsong.”[96]

2.5 Harmony

In addition to making harmonic use of the modes of lim-ited transposition, he cited the harmonic series as a phys-ical phenomenon which provides chords with a contextwhich he felt to be missing in purely serial music.[97] Anexample ofMessiaen’s harmonic use of this phenomenon,which he called “resonance”, is the last two bars of hisfirst piano Prélude, La colombe (“The dove”): the chord isbuilt from harmonics of the fundamental base note E.[98]

Related to this use of resonance, Messiaen also composedmusic in which the lowest, or fundamental, note is com-bined with higher notes or chords played much more qui-etly. These higher notes, far from being perceived as con-ventional harmony, function as harmonics that alter the

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Example 4. The song of the golden oriole from Le loriot, partof Catalogue d'oiseaux. The birdsong played by the pianist’s lefthand (notated on the lower staff) provides the fundamental notes,and the quieter harmonies played by the right hand (on the upperstaff) alter their timbre.

timbre of the fundamental note like mixture stops on apipe organ.[99] An example is the song of the golden ori-ole in Le loriot of the Catalogue d'oiseaux for solo piano(Example 4).In his use of conventional diatonic chords, Messiaen of-ten transcended their historically banal connotations (forexample, his frequent use of the added sixth chord as aresolution).[100]

2.6 Birdsong

Birdsong fascinated Messiaen from an early age, and inthis he found encouragement from his teacher Dukas,who reportedly urged his pupils to “listen to the birds”.Messiaen included stylised birdsong in some of hisearly compositions (including L'abîme d'oiseaux from theQuatuor pour la fin du temps), integrating it into hissound-world by techniques like the modes of limitedtransposition and chord colouration. His evocations ofbirdsong became increasingly sophisticated, and with Leréveil des oiseaux this process reachedmaturity, the wholepiece being built from birdsong: in effect it is a dawn cho-rus for orchestra. The same can be said for “Epode”, thefive-minute sixth movement of “Chronochromie”, whichis scored for eighteen violins, each one playing a differentbirdsong. Messiaen notated the bird species with the mu-sic in the score (examples 1 and 4). The pieces are notsimple transcriptions; even the works with purely bird-inspired titles, such as Catalogue d'oiseaux and Fauvettedes jardins, are tone poems evoking the landscape, itscolours and atmosphere.[101]

2.7 Serialism

For some compositions, Messiaen created scales for dura-tion, attack and timbre analogous to the chromatic pitchscale. He expressed annoyance at the historical impor-tance given to one of these works, Mode de valeurs etd'intensités, by musicologists intent on crediting him withthe invention of “total serialism”.[78]

Messiaen later introduced what he called a “communica-ble language”, a “musical alphabet” to encode sentences.He first used this technique in hisMéditations sur le mys-tère de la Sainte Trinité for organ; where the “alphabet”includes motifs for the concepts to have, to be and God,while the sentences encoded feature sections from thewritings of St. Thomas Aquinas.[102]

3 Works

3.1 Compositions

An ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument, for whichMessiaenincluded a part in several of his compositions: the orchestra forhis opera Saint François d'Assise includes three of them

3.1.1 Published

• Le banquet céleste (“The heavenly banquet”), organ(1928, a recomposition of a section from his unpub-lished orchestral piece Le banquet eucharistique[103])

• Préludes, piano (1928–29)

• Diptyque (“Diptych”), organ (1930)

• La mort du nombre (“The death of numbers”), so-prano, tenor, violin and piano (1930)

• Les offrandes oubliées (“The forgotten offerings”),orchestra (1930)

• Trois mélodies, song cycle (1930)

• Le Tombeau Resplendissant, orchestra (1931)

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• Apparition de l'église éternelle (“Apparition of theeternal church”), organ (1932)

• Fantaisie burlesque, piano (1932)

• Hymne au Saint Sacrement (“Hymn to the HolySacrament”), orchestra (1932, lost 1943, recon-structed from memory 1946[104])

• Thème et variations, (“Theme and Variations”) vio-lin and piano (1932)

• L'ascension (“The Ascension”), orchestra (1932–33; organ version including replacement movement,1933–34)

• La Nativité du Seigneur (“The Lord’s nativity”), or-gan (1935)

• Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas (“Piece writtenas a memorial of Paul Dukas”), piano, (1935)

• Vocalise, voice and piano (1935)

• Poèmes pourMi (“Poems forMi"), song cycle (1936,orchestral version 1937)

• O sacrum convivium!, choral motet (1937)

• Chants de terre et de ciel (“Songs of earth andheaven”), song cycle (1938)

• Les corps glorieux (“Glorious bodies”), organ (1939)

• Quatuor pour la fin du temps (“Quartet for the endof time”), violin, cello, clarinet, piano (1940–41)

• Rondeau, piano (1943)

• Visions de l'Amen (“Visions of the Amen”), two pi-anos (1943)

• Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine (“Threesmall liturgies of the Divine Presence”), women’svoices, piano solo, ondes Martenot solo, orchestra(1943–44)

• Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (“Twenty gazes onthe Christ-child”), piano (1944)

• Harawi: Chants d'amour et de mort, (“Harawi:Songs of love and death”) song cycle (1944)

• Turangalîla-Symphonie, piano solo, ondes Martenotsolo, orchestra (1946–48)

• Cinq rechants, 12 singers (1948)

• Cantéyodjayâ, piano (1949)

• Messe de la Pentecôte ("Pentecost mass”), organ(1949–50)

• Quatre études de rythme (“Four studies in rhythm”),piano (1949–50)

1. Île de feu 12. Mode de valeurs et d'intensités3. Neumes rhythmiques4. Île de feu 2

• Le merle noir (“Blackbird”), flute and piano(1952[105])

• Livre d'orgue, organ (1951–2)

• Réveil des oiseaux (“Dawn chorus”), solo piano andorchestra (1953)

• Oiseaux exotiques (“Exotic birds”), solo piano andwind ensemble (1955–56)

• Catalogue d'oiseaux (“Bird catalogue”), piano(1956–58)

• Book 1• i Le chocard des alpes ("Alpine chough")• ii Le loriot ("Golden oriole") (loriot andLoriod are homophones)

• iii Le merle bleu ("Blue rock thrush")• Book 2

• iv Le traquet stapazin ("Black-earedwheatear")

• Book 3• v La chouette hulotte ("Tawny owl")• vi L'alouette lulu ("Woodlark")

• Book 4• vii La rousserolle effarvatte ("Reed war-bler")

• Book 5• viii L'alouette calandrelle ("Short-toedlark")

• ix La bouscarle ("Cetti’s warbler")• Book 6

• x Le merle de roche ("Rufous-tailed rockthrush")

• Book 7• xi La buse variable ("Buzzard")• xii Le traquet rieur ("Black wheatear")• xiii Le courlis cendré ("Curlew")

• Chronochromie (“Time-colour”), orchestra (1959–60)

• Verset pour la fête de la dédicace (“Verse for the fes-tival of dedication”), organ (1960)

• Sept haïkaï (“Seven haikus"), solo piano and orches-tra (1962)

• Couleurs de la cité céleste (“Colours of the CelestialCity”), solo piano and ensemble (1963)

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• Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (“And I awaitthe resurrection of the dead”), wind, brass and per-cussion (1964)

• La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ(“The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ”),large 10-part chorus, piano solo, cello solo, flutesolo, clarinet solo, xylorimba solo, vibraphone solo,large orchestra (1965–69)

• Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité (“Med-itations on the mystery of the Holy Trinity”), organ(1969)

• La fauvette des jardins ("Garden warbler"), piano(1970)

• Des canyons aux étoiles… (“From the canyons to thestars...”), solo piano, solo horn, solo glockenspiel,solo xylorimba, small orchestra with 13 string play-ers (1971–74)

• Saint-François d'Assise (“St Francis of Assisi”),opera (1975–1983)

• Livre du Saint Sacrement (“Book of the Holy Sacra-ment”), organ (1984)

• Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (“Small sketches ofbirds”), piano (1985)

• Un vitrail et des oiseaux (“Stained-glass windowand birds”), piano solo, brass, wind and percussion(1986)

• La ville d'en-haut (“The city on high”), piano solo,brass, wind and percussion (1987)

• Un sourire (“A smile”), orchestra (1989)

• Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes (“Piece for pi-ano and string quartet”) (1991)

• Éclairs sur l'au-delà... (“Illuminations on the be-yond...”), orchestra (1988–92)

3.1.2 Unpublished, posthumously published, or lost

A number of Messiaen’s compositions were not sanc-tioned by the composer for publication. They include thefollowing, some of which have been published posthu-mously and recorded, and some of which are lost.

• La dame de Shallott, for piano (1917)

• La banquet eucharistique, for orchestra (1928)

• Variations écossaises, for organ (1928)

• Mass, 8 sopranos and 4 violins (1933)

• Fantaisie, for violin and piano (1933; published2007)

• Fêtes des belles eaux, for six ondesMartenots (1937)

• Musique de scène pour un Œdipe, electronic (1942)

• Chant des déportés, chorus and orchestra (1945, thenlost, rediscovered 1991)

• Timbres-durées, musique concrète (1952), realisedby Pierre Henry in the radiophonic workshop ofFrench radio, an experiment which Messiaen laterdeemed a failure[106]

• Feuillets inedits for piano and ondes martenot (pub-lished 2001)

• Concert à quatre (“Quadruple concerto”), piano,flute, oboe, cello and orchestra (1990–91, almostfinished at the time of his death, completed by Lo-riod and Benjamin, premiered in 1994, published in2003)

• La Fauvette Passerinette ("Subalpine warbler"), pi-ano (1961), one of Messiaen’s birdsong pieces forsolo piano, discovered and edited for performanceby Peter Hill and premiered by him in November2013

• Un oiseau des arbres de vie (Oiseau tui) (“A birdof the trees of life (Tui bird)"), a discarded move-ment from Éclairs sur l’au-delà…, piano sketch withorchestration annotations discovered among Mes-siaen’s papers, orchestrated by Christopher Din-gle and first performed at The Proms in August2015[107]

3.2 Treatises

• Technique de mon langage musical (“The techniqueof my musical language”). Paris: Leduc, 1944.

• Vingt leçons d'harmonie (“20 harmony lessons”).Paris: Leduc, 1944.

• Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d'ornithologie(1949–1992) (“Treatise on rhythm, colour and or-nithology”), completed by Yvonne Loriod. 7 partsbound in 8 volumes. Paris: Leduc, 1994–2002.

• Analyses of the Piano Works of Maurice Ravel,edited by Yvonne Loriod, translated by Paul Grif-fiths. [Paris]: Durand, 2005.

4 Notes[1] Dingle (2007), p. 3

[2] Hill & Simeone (2005), pp. 10–14

[3] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 15

[4] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 41

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[5] Hill (1995), pp. 300–301

[6] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 109

[7] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 110

[8] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 16

[9] Hill & Simeone (2005), pp. 16–17

[10] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), p. 10

[11] Bannister (2013), p. 171

[12] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 20

[13] For further discussion of Messiaen’s youth, see, generally,Hill & Simeone (2005)

[14] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 22

[15] Hill & Simeone (2005), pp. 34–37

[16] Heller (2010), p. 68

[17] Dingle (2007), p. 45

[18] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), pp. 56–57

[19] Gillock (2009), p. 381

[20] Yvonne Loriod, in Hill (1995), p. 294

[21] From the programme for the opening concert of La jeuneFrance, quoted in Griffiths (1985), p. 72

[22] Hill & Simeone (2005), pp. 73–75

[23] Dingle (2013), p. 34

[24] Benitez (2008), p. 288

[25] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 115

[26] Griffiths (1985), p. 139

[27] Rischin (2003), p. 5

[28] See extended discussion in Griffiths (1985), Chapter 6: ATechnique for the End of Time, particularly pp. 104–106

[29] Benitez (2008), p. 155

[30] Benitez (2008), p. 33

[31] Pierre Boulez in Hill (1995), pp. 266ff

[32] Benitez (2008), p. xiii

[33] Matossian (1986), p. 48

[34] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), pp. 11, 64

[35] Hill & Simeone (2007), p. 21

[36] Griffiths (1985), p. 142

[37] Hill & Simeone (2005), pp. 186–192

[38] Benitez (2008), p. 3

[39] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 415

[40] Hill & Simeone (2007), p. 11

[41] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), p. 104

[42] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), pp. 192–194

[43] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 198

[44] Dingle (2007), p. 139. For a general discussion of Mes-siaen’s fusion of birdsong and music, see Hill & Simeone(2007)

[45] Hill & Simeone (2007), p. 27

[46] Kraft (2013)

[47] Griffiths (1985), p. 168; see also Kraft (2013)

[48] Benitez (2008), p. 4

[49] Benitez (2008), p. 138

[50] Messiaen’s visit to Japan is documented in Hill & Sime-one (2005), pp. 245–251, and there is a more technicaldiscussion in Griffiths (1985), pp. 197–200. MalcolmTroup, writing in Hill (1995), additionally notes the directinfluence of Noh theatre on aspects of Messiaen’s opera StFrançois d'Assise.

[51] Benitez (2008), p. 280

[52] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), p. 166

[53] Simeone (2009), pp. 185–195

[54] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 245

[55] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 306

[56] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 333

[57] Bruhn (2008), pp. 57–96

[58] Griffiths (1985), p. 225

[59] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 301

[60] Programme for Opéra de la Bastille production of St.François d'Assise, p. 18

[61] The composer in conversation with Jean-Cristophe Martiin 1992, see p. 29 of booklet accompanying the recordingof Saint-François d'Assise conducted by Kent Nagano onDeutsche Grammophon/PolyGram 445 176; see also Hill& Simeone (2005), pp. 340 and 342

[62] Dingle (2013)

[63] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 357

[64] Dingle (2007), p. 207

[65] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 371

[66] “Messiaen Edition”. ArkivMusic. Retrieved September8, 2013.

[67] Yvonne Loriod, in Hill (1995), p. 302

[68] Gillock (2009), p. 383

[69] Dingle (2013), pp. 293–310

[70] Griffiths (1985), p. 15

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[71] Griffiths (1985), Introduction

[72] “Olivier Messiaen”. Schott Music. Retrieved September8, 2013.

[73] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 213

[74] Bruhn, Siglind; Deely, John (January 1996). “Reli-gious Symbolism in the Music of Olivier Messiaen”.The American Journal of Semiotics 13 (1): 277–309.doi:10.5840/ajs1996131/412.

[75] See for instance Griffiths (1985), p. 233, "[Des canyonsaux étoiles...] is therefore not so much a synthesis, as hassometimes been suggested, but more a step into the futurethat also joins the circle with the composer’s past.”

[76] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 77

[77] Coleman, John (November 24, 2008). “Maestro ofJoy”. America: the National Catholic Review. RetrievedSeptember 8, 2013.

[78] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 47

[79] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 114

[80] Messiaen, Technique de mon langage musical

[81] Bruhn (2008), p. 46

[82] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), p. 26

[83] Sherlaw Johnson (1989), p. 76

[84] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), pp. 49–50

[85] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 63

[86] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 62

[87] See Messiaen, Olivier Traité de rythme, de couleur, etd'ornithologie. See also Bernard, Jonathan W. (1986).“Messiaen’s Synaesthesia: The Correspondence betweenColor and Sound Structure in His Music.” Music Percep-tion 4: 41–68..

[88] George Benjamin, speaking in interview with TommyPearson, broadcast on BBC4 in the interval of Prom con-cert in 2004 at which Benjamin conducted a performanceof Des canyons aux étoiles... Asked what made Messi-aen so influential he said, “I think the sheer—the word heloved—colour has been so influential. People, composers,have found that colour, rather than being a decorative ele-ment, could be a structural, a fundamental element. Andnot colour just in a surface way, not just in the way you or-chestrate it—no—the fundamental material of the musicitself. More than that I can't say except that for my ownsmall world he was incredibly important, and an excep-tionally special and indeed wonderful person. I met himwhen I was very young (I was 16) and stayed closely intouch with him until he died in 1992, and was immenselyfond of him...”

[89] Benitez, Vincent (July 2009). “Reconsidering Messi-aen as Serialist”. Music Analysis 28 (2–3): 267–299.doi:10.1111/j.1468-2249.2011.00293.x.

[90] For discussion, see for example Iain G. Matheson’s article“The End of Time” in Hill (1995), particularly pp. 237–243

[91] Hill (1995), p. 17

[92] Griffiths (1985), p. 32

[93] Bruhn (2008), pp. 37–49

[94] Dingle & Simeone (2007), p. 48

[95] Pople (1998), p. 82

[96] Quoted by Gillian Weir, who discusses the work in Hill(1995) pp. 364–366

[97] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), pp. 241–242

[98] Griffiths (1985) p. 34

[99] Benitez, Vincent (April 2004). “Aspects of Harmonyin Messiaen’s Later Music: An Examination of theChords of Transposed Inversions on the Same Bass Note”.Journal of Musicological Research 23 (2): 187–226.doi:10.1080/01411890490449781.

[100] Bruhn, Siglind (2008). “Traces of a Thomistic De musicain the Compositions of Olivier Messiaen”. Logos 11 (4):16–56.

[101] For extensive discussion of the use of birdsong in Messi-aen’s work, see Kraft (2013).

[102] See, for example, Richard Steinitz in Hill (1995), pp.466–469

[103] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 25

[104] Hill & Simeone (2005), p. 120

[105] Hill & Simeone (2005), pp. 199ff, outlines the chronologyof Messiaen’s compositions of 1951–52 Le merle noir andLivre d'orgue

[106] Messiaen & Samuel (1994), p. 198

[107] Messiaen: Un oiseau des arbres de Vie (Oiseau tui), BBC,7 August 2015

5 References• Bannister, Peter (2013). “Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992)". In Anderson, Christopher S. Twentieth-century organ music. New York: Routledge. ISBN9781136497902.

• Benitez, Vincent P (2008). Olivier Messiaen: A Re-search and Information Guide. New York and Lon-don: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-97372-4.

• Bruhn, Siglind (2008). Messiaen’s Interpretations ofHoliness and Trinity. Echoes of Medieval Theol-ogy in the Oratorio, Organ Meditations, and Opera.Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press. ISBN 978-1-57647-139-5.

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• Dingle, Christopher (2007). The Life of Messiaen.Cambridge & New York: Cambridge UniversityPress. ISBN 0-521-63547-0.

• Dingle, Christopher (2013). Messiaen’s final works.Burlington, VT: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754606338.

• Dingle, Christopher, & Nigel Simeone (eds) (2007).Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature. Alder-shot: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-5297-1.

• Gillock, Jon (2009). Performing Messiaen’s OrganMusic: 66 Masterclasses. Bloomington, Indiana: In-diana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-35373-3.

• Griffiths, Paul (1985). Olivier Messiaen and the Mu-sic of Time. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UniversityPress. ISBN 0-8014-1813-5.

• Heller, Karin (2010). “Olivier Messiaen and Car-dinal Jean-Marie Lustiger”. In Shenton, Andrew.Messiaen the theologian. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN9780754666400.

• Hill, Peter, ed. (1995). The Messiaen Companion.London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-17033-1.

• Hill, Peter, and Nigel Simeone (2005). Messiaen.New Haven and London: Yale University Press.ISBN 0-300-10907-5.

• Hill, Peter, and Nigel Simeone (eds) (2007). OlivierMessiaen: oiseaux exotiques. Aldershot: Ashgate.ISBN 9780754656302.

• Kraft, David (2013). Birdsong in the Music ofOlivier Messiaen. London: Arosa Press. ISBN 978-1477517796.

• Matossian, Nouritza (1986). Xenakis. London:Kahn and Averill. ISBN 1-871082-17-X.

• Pople, Anthony (1998). Messiaen: Quatuor pourla fin du temps. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress. ISBN 9780521585385.

• Rischin, Rebecca (2003). For the End of Time: TheStory of the Messiaen Quartet. Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press. ISBN 0-8014-4136-6.

• Samuel, Claude (tr. E. Thomas Glasow) (1994).Olivier Messiaen: Music and Color: Conversationswith Claude Samuel. Portland, Oregon: AmadeusPress. ISBN 0-931340-67-5.

• Shenton, Andrew (2008). Olivier Messiaen’s Systemof Signs: Notes towards Understanding his Music.Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6168-9.

• Shenton, Andrew (2010). Messiaen the Theologian.Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6640-0.

• Sherlaw Johnson, Robert (1975). Messiaen. Berke-ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.ISBN 0-520-02812-0.

• Sherlaw Johnson, Robert (1989). Messiaen.Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN9780520067349.

• Simeone, Nigel (2009). "'Un oeuvre simple, solen-nelle...'". In Shenton, Andrew. Messiaen the theolo-gian. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 9780754666400.

6 Further reading• Baggech, Melody Ann (1998). An English Trans-lation of Olivier Messiaen’s “Traite de Rythme, deCouleur, et d'Ornithologie”. Norman: The Univer-sity of Oklahoma.

• Barker, Thomas (2012). “The Social and Aes-thetic Situation of Olivier Messiaen’s Religious Mu-sic: Turangalîla Symphonie.” International Reviewof the Aesthetics and Sociology ofMusic 43/1:53–70.

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2000). “A Creative Legacy:Messiaen as Teacher of Analysis.” College MusicSymposium 40 (2000): 117–39. http://symposium.music.org/messiaen-as-teacher-of-analysis

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2001). “Pitch Organizationand Dramatic Design in Saint François d’Assise ofOlivier Messiaen.” PhD diss., Bloomington: Indi-ana University.

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2002). “Simultaneous Contrastand Additive Designs in Olivier Messiaen’s OperaSaint François d’Assise.” Music Theory Online 8.2(August 2002). http://mto.societymusictheory.org/

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2004). “Aspects of Harmonyin Messiaen’s Later Music: An Examination of theChords of Transposed Inversions on the Same BassNote.” Journal of Musicological Research 23, no. 2:187–226.

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2004). “Narrating Saint Fran-cis’s Spiritual Journey: Referential Pitch Structuresand Symbolic Images in Olivier Messiaen’s SaintFrançois d'Assise.” In Poznan Studies on Opera,edited by Maciej Jablonski, 363–411.

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2008). “Messiaen as Impro-viser.” Dutch Journal of Music Theory 13, no. 2(May 2008): 129–44.

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2009). “Reconsidering Mes-siaen as Serialist.” Music Analysis 28, nos. 2–3(2009): 267–99 (published April 21, 2011).

• Benitez, Vincent P. (2010). “Messiaen andAquinas.” InMessiaen the Theologian, edited by An-drew Shenton, 101–26. Aldershot: Ashgate.

• Boivin, Jean (1993). “La Classe de Messiaen: His-torique, reconstitution, impact”. Ph.D. diss. Mon-treal: Ecole Polytechnique, Montreal.

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• Boswell-Kurc, Lilise (2001). “Olivier Messiaen’sReligious War-Time Works and Their Controver-sial Reception in France (1941–1946) ". Ph.D. diss.New York: New York University.

• Bruhn, Siglind (2007). Messiaen’s Contemplationsof Covenant and Incarnation: Musical Symbols ofFaith in the Two Great Piano Cycles of the 1940s.Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press. ISBN 978-1-57647-129-6.

• Cheong Wai-Ling (2003). “Messiaen’s Chord Ta-bles: Ordering the Disordered”. Tempo 57, no. 226(October): 2–10.

• Cheong Wai-Ling (2008). “Neumes and GreekRhythms: The Breakthrough in Messiaen’s Bird-song”. Acta Musicologica 80, no. 1:1–32.

• Dingle, Christopher (2013). Messiaen’s Fi-nal Works. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ISBN9780754606338.

• Fallon, Robert Joseph (2005). “Messiaen’s Mime-sis: The Language and Culture of The Bird Styles”.Ph.D. diss. Berkeley: University of California,Berkeley.

• Fallon, Robert (2008). “Birds, Beasts, and Bombsin Messiaen’s Cold War Mass”. The Journal of Mu-sicology 26, no. 2 (Spring): 175–204.

• Festa, Paul (2008). Oh My God: Messiaen in theEar of the Unbeliever. San Francisco: Bar NothingBooks.

• Goléa, Antoine (1960). Rencontres avec OlivierMessiaen. Paris: Julliard.

• Hardink, Jason M. (2007). “Messiaen and Plain-chant”. D.M.A. diss. Houston: Rice University.

• Harris, Joseph Edward (2004). “Musique coloree:Synesthetic Correspondence in theWorks of OlivierMessiaen”. Ph.D. diss. Ames: The University ofIowa.

• Hill, Matthew Richard (1995). “Messiaen’s Re-gard du silence as an Expression of Catholic Faith”.D.M.A. diss. Madison: The University of Wiscon-sin, Madison.

• Laycock, Gary Eng Yeow (2010). “Re-evaluatingOlivier Messiaen’s Musical Language from 1917 to1935”. Ph.D. diss. Bloomington: Indiana Univer-sity, 2010.

• Luchese, Diane (1998). “Olivier Messiaen’s SlowMusic: Glimpses of Eternity in Time”. Ph.D. diss.Evanston: Northwestern University

• McGinnis, Margaret Elizabeth (2003). “Playing theFields: Messiaen, Music, and the Extramusical”.Ph.D. diss. Chapel Hill: The University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill.

• Nelson, David Lowell (1992). “An Analysis ofOlivier Messiaen’s Chant Paraphrases”. 2 vols.Ph.D. diss. Evanston: Northwestern University

• Ngim, Alan Gerald (1997). “Olivier Messiaen as aPianist: A Study of Tempo and Rhythm Based onHis Recordings of Visions de l'amen". D.M.A. diss.Coral Gables: University of Miami.

• Peterson, Larry Wayne (1973). “Messiaen andRhythm: Theory and Practice”. Ph.D. diss. ChapelHill: The University of North Carolina at ChapelHill

• Puspita, Amelia (2008). “The Influence of Bali-nese Gamelan on the Music of Olivier Messiaen”.D.M.A. diss. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati

• Reverdy, Michèle (1988). L'Œuvre pour orchestred'Olivier Messiaen. Paris: Alphonse Leduc. ISBN2-85689-038-5.

• Schultz, Rob (2008). “Melodic Contour and Non-retrogradable Structure in the Birdsong of OlivierMessiaen”. Music Theory Spectrum 30, no. 1(Spring): 89–137.

• Shenton, Andrew David James (1998). “The Un-spoken Word: Olivier Messiaen’s 'langage commu-nicable'". Ph.D. diss. Cambridge: Harvard Univer-sity.

• Sholl, Robert (2008). Messiaen Studies. Cambridge& New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-83981-5.

• Simeone, Nigel (2004). "'Chez Messiaen, tout estpriére': Messiaen’s Appointment at the Trinité".The Musical Times 145, no. 1889 (Winter): 36–53.

• Simeone, Nigel (2008). “Messiaen, Koussevitzkyand the USA”. The Musical Times 149, no. 1905(Winter): 25–44.

• Waumsley, Stuart (1975). The Organ Music ofOlivier Messiaen (New ed.). Paris: Alphonse Leduc.OCLC 2911308; LCCN 77-457244.

• Welsh Ibanez, Deborah (2005). Color, Timbre, andResonance: Developments in Olivier Messiaen’sUse of Percussion Between 1956–1965. D.M.A.diss. Coral Gables: University of Miami

• Zheng, Zhong (2004). A Study of Messiaen’s SoloPianoWorks. Ph.D. diss. Hong Kong: The ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong.

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7.1 Listening 15

6.1 Films

• Apparition of the Eternal Church – Paul Festa’s2006 film about responses of 31 artists toMessiaen’smusic.

• Messiaen at 80 (1988). Directed by Sue Knussen.BFI database entry.

• Olivier Messiaen et les oiseaux (1973). Directed byMichel Fano and Denise Tual.

• Olivier Messiaen – The Crystal Liturgy (2007 [DVDrelease date]). Directed by Olivier Mille.

• Olivier Messiaen: Works (1991). DVD on whichMessiaen performs “Improvisations” on the organ atthe Paris Trinity Church.

• The South Bank Show: Olivier Messiaen: The Mu-sic of Faith (1985). Directed by Alan Benson. BFIdatabase entry.

7 External links

• BBC Messiaen Profile

• Online Messiaen resource by Malcolm Ball

• Infography about Olivier Messiaen

• oliviermessiaen.net, hosted by the Boston UniversityMessiaen Project [BUMP]. Includes detailed infor-mation on the composer’s life and works, events, andlinks to other Messiaen websites.

• www.philharmonia.co.uk/messiaen, the Philhar-monia Orchestra’s Messiaen website. The site con-tains articles, unseen images, programme notes andfilms to go alongside the orchestra’s series of con-certs celebrating the Centenary of Olivier Messi-aen’s birth.

• David Schiff, Music for the End of Time, The Na-tion, posted January 25, 2006 (February 13, 2006issue). Formally a review of Messiaen by Peter Hilland Nigel Simeone, but provides an overview ofMessiaen’s life and works.

• Music and the Holocaust – Olivier Messiaen

• A biography on IRCAM's website (French)

• My Messiaen Modes – A visual representation ofMessiaen’s modes of limited transposition

7.1 Listening

• Thème et variations – Helen Kim, violin; AdamBowles, piano Luna Nova New Music Ensemble

• Le merle noir – John McMurtery, flute; AdamBowles, piano Luna Nova New Music Ensemble

• Quatuor pour la fin du temps – Luna Nova NewMu-sic Ensemble

• Regard de l'esprit de joie from Vingt regards..., TomPoster, pianist

• Birdsong in Messiaen on YouTube

• Example of Birdsong in Messiaen on YouTubeplayed on a Mühleisen pipe organ

• In-depth feature on Olivier Messiaen by RadioFrance International’s English service

• Excerpts from sound archives of Messiaen’s works.

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16 8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

8 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

8.1 Text• Olivier Messiaen Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Messiaen?oldid=712981446 Contributors: Zundark, Tarquin, Koyaa-

nis Qatsi, Andre Engels, Deb, Camembert, Youandme, Flamurai, Tregoweth, Jimfbleak, Sir Paul, Kaihsu, PS4FA, Bemoeial, Viajero,Pladask, Tpbradbury, Hyacinth, Jmabel, Romanm, Andrew Levine, Tanuki Z, JackofOz, Snader, Tsavage, Davidcannon, Snobot, Crcul-ver, Cobaltbluetony, Anville, Henry Flower, Alfa, Ferdinand Pienaar, Bobblewik, Andycjp, DavidBrooks, SarekOfVulcan, Antandrus,Karol Langner, The Land, D6, Mindspillage, A-giau, Discospinster, Xezbeth, Bender235, ESkog, Kwamikagami, Pinners, Jashiin, Small-jim, LuoShengli, Schissel, Alansohn, Gintautasm, Pwiener, Craigy144, Ksnow, Suruena, Angr, Woohookitty, ^demon, Zzyzx11, Noetica,Emerson7, Graham87, Kbdank71, Avram, Rjwilmsi, Wahoofive, Jake Wartenberg, Gryffindor, Carl Logan, Missmarple, Lockley, Pabix,Ligulem, Brighterorange, TBHecht, Hermione1980, FlaBot, RobertG, Gparker, Pinkville, Gareth E. Kegg, Chobot, DTOx, Korg, Gw-ernol, Carimcaskill, Epolk, Gaius Cornelius, Nicke L, MarcK, Badagnani, Welsh, Yahya Abdal-Aziz, Journalist, Tony1, Bota47, GlennMagus Harvey, Shadowblade, Homagetocatalonia, Ninly, Nikkimaria, KGasso, Josh3580, Stevouk, Adso de Fimnu, That Guy, FromThat Show!, Attilios, SmackBot, MattieTK, Johnrcrellin, AndyZ, Pandion auk, Ohnoitsjamie, Ckerr, Bluebot, Kleinzach, Timneu22,Eusebeus, Countersubject, Evgeny Lykhin, Grover cleveland, Makemi, A J Hay, Rob~enwiki, Jon Awbrey, Pkeets, Ceoil, Ohconfu-cius, Cor anglais 16, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, MegA, JzG, Rizzleboffin, Voceditenore, Kyoko, Jamesellis, Egnever, Violncello, Van-ished user, Joseph Solis in Australia, Patriciagray1794, Igoldste, Courcelles, Tawkerbot2, ShelfSkewed, Tex, Cydebot, Grahamec, RaoulNK, Barticus88, JustAGal, Edhubbard, BigNorwich, RobotG, Shirt58, Roundhouse0, Rsocol, LibLord, GyspyScreamOut, Kaini, Cobeer,Sluzzelin, East718, Rothorpe, Geniac, Bencherlite, A4, Jerome Kohl, Mouchoir le Souris, Cgingold, Rickard Vogelberg, Clavecin, Jerryteps, CommonsDelinker, Lilac Soul, J.delanoy, Tadam, Mind meal, Btouburg, Trombipulation!, HOUZI, Ipigott, Jamesaellis, TheScotch,FJPB, ArgoBertrand, Treisijs, Hugo999, Roaring phoenix, Middlepedal, VolkovBot, HFJ, WarddrBOT, Martinevans123, TXiKiBoT, Rei-bot, Yogicat, Mimich, Rastrojo, Paulfesta, Tomaxer, Softlavender, Turangalila, Cantuscoptus, MuzikJunky, Ferstel, WereSpielChequers,Leejasonc, Gerakibot, Karaboom, Buddypoop, Pachon, Monegasque, Redmarkviolinist, Utorak-sedamdeset, Chrisdingle, Addaick, Stfg,Lbaich, Dabomb87, Ncchuckholton, RobertG II, ClueBot, The Thing That Should Not Be, Bump luke, Henkelstone, Bellperc, TheOldJa-cobite, Boing! said Zebedee, CohesionBot, Feline Hymnic, Sun Creator, Busonischolar, MrTsunami, Soranyn, SchreiberBike, Agnostizi,Thingg, Versus22, David Šenek, Orlov Herne~enwiki, Avoided, Spud88, RoverRexSpot, RichLow, XD ello, Addbot, Bennó, LinkFA-Bot,Jello12, Cote d'Azur, Luckas-bot, Yobot, EchetusXe, Themfromspace, Amirobot, Pem440, IRP, Galoubet, Daniel.finnan, Materialscientist,RobertEves92, Aff123a, Citation bot, ArthurBot, AKappa, Obersachsebot, Capricorn42, Davshul, Karljoos, Petropoxy (Lithoderm Proxy),Tergum violinae, Someguy1200, Joepat12, Omnipaedista, Jezhotwells, DutchmanInDisguise, RibotBOT, FrescoBot, LeMiklos, Rigaudon,Atlantia, Citation bot 1, Artoffuge, Bheuninckx, RedBot, Gerda Arendt, Elekhh, Deskford, P100jboo, RjwilmsiBot, Messiaenman, Abfall-Reiniger, 4meter4, Moswento, Outriggr, MH1987, Danmuz, Xanchester, ClueBot NG, Accelerometer, Cc21002, Patriciathornton, Jacey-mon05, Furor Teutonicus, BG19bot, Chrysalifourfour, Toccata quarta, 14jbella, Marosc9, Dexbot, Mogism, JimVardakis, VIAFbot, DGG(NYPL), Euligulam, Whirlwind780, Monkbot, Eman235, Necronomitom, Mon-el-30, KasparBot, Zeke201 and Anonymous: 213

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