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Olivier Messiaen
Biography
Olivier Messiaen (10 December 1908, Avignon, France – 27 April 1992, Clichy, France) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist.
Messiaen studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré. He was appointed organist at the church of La Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post he held until his death. On the fall of France in 1940 Messiaen was made a prisoner of war, and while incarcerated he composed his Quatuor pour la fin du temps ("Quartet for the end of time") for the only four available instruments, piano, violin, cello, and clarinet.
Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony soon after 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 Pierre Boulez, Yvonne Loriod (who later became Messiaen's second wife), Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis and George Benjamin.
Messiaen's music is rhythmically complex (he was interested in rhythms from ancient Greek and from Hindu sources), and is harmonically and melodically based on modes of limited transposition, which were Messiaen's own innovation. Many of his compositions depict what he termed "the marvellous aspects of the faith", drawing on his unshakeable Roman Catholicism. He travelled widely, and he wrote works inspired by such diverse influences as Japanese music, the landscape of Bryce Canyon in Utah, and the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Messiaen experienced a mild form of synaesthesia manifested as a perception of colors when he heard certain harmonies, particularly harmonies built from his modes, and he used combinations of these colors in his compositions. For a short period Messiaen experimented with the parametrization associated with "total serialism", in which field he is often cited as an innovator. His style absorbed many exotic musical influences such as Indonesian gamelan (tuned percussion often features prominently in his orchestral works), and he also championed the ondes Martenot.
Messiaen found birdsong fascinating; he believed birds to be the greatest musicians and considered himself as much an ornithologist as a composer. He notated birdsongs worldwide, and he incorporated birdsong transcriptions into a majority of his music. His innovative use of color, his personal conception of the relationship between time and music, his use of birdsong, and his intent to express religious ideas, all combine to make Messiaen's musical style notably distinctive.
Works for Winds
- Apparition de l’église éternelle (arr. Miller) (1932/2012)
- Couleurs de la Cité Céleste (1963)
- Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964)
- La Ville d'en-Haut (1987)
- Oiseaux exotiques (1956)
- Un vitrail et des oiseaux (1986)
Resources
- Miles, Richard B., and Larry Blocher. 2002. Teaching Music Through Performance in Band. Volume 4. Chicago: GIA Publications. pp. 781.
- Olivier Messiaen, Wikipedia Accessed 17 January 2017