Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen (Avignon 1918—Clichy 1992) is one of the most important composers of the 20th century. An organist and pianist, but also an ornithologist, his inspired teaching at the Paris Conservatoire earned him worldwide acclaim. Composers including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Gerard Grisey, Tristan Murail and György Kurtág studied under him. Messiaen developed a personal musical idiom based on rhythms from Indian music and the metre of ancient Greek music, a complete harmonic system which he combined with colour analogies, the incorporation of transcriptions of birdsong, intricate orchestration and the use of rare instruments (such as the ondes Martenot).

Many of his works are intensely religious in nature, since his creativity was fuelled in part by his Catholic faith. He composed major cycles for solo piano (“20 Gazes on the Infant Jesus”, “Catalogue of Birds”) and organ (“Pentecost Mass”, “Organ book”), chamber music (“Quartet for the End of Time”, “The Blackbird”), works for voice (“Poems for Mi”, “Songs of Earth and Sky”, “Harawi”), large-scale orchestral works (“The Ascension”, “Turangalîla-Symphony”) and the opera “Saint Francis of Assisi”.