Olivier Messiaen
French Modern mystic who drew on birdsong, faith and exotic rhythm
1908
1992
French
Modern
Turangalîla-Symphonie, Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Early life
Olivier Messiaen was born on 10 December 1908 in Avignon, France. His mother was the poet Cécile Sauvage, and his father a teacher of English literature. Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of eleven, an exceptionally early admission, studying organ with Marcel Dupré and composition with Paul Dukas. By his early twenties he had been appointed organist at the church of La Trinité in Paris, a post he would hold for over sixty years, and had begun to develop the highly individual musical language that would distinguish his entire output.
Career and major works
In 1940 Messiaen was captured by the German army and held in Stalag VIII-A, a prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Silesia. It was there, under appalling conditions, that he composed the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) for the instruments available among his fellow prisoners — clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. The work was premiered in the camp on 15 January 1941 before an audience of several hundred inmates. After his release, Messiaen returned to Paris and in 1941 was appointed professor of harmony at the Conservatoire, later becoming professor of composition. His classes attracted an extraordinary roster of pupils, including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and George Benjamin. His major works include the Turangalîla-Symphonie (1948), a vast celebration of love and joy; Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus (1944), twenty contemplations for solo piano of formidable scale; Couleurs de la Cité Céleste (1963); Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964); and the opera Saint François d'Assise (1983), which occupied him for eight years.
Musical style and legacy
Messiaen's music is shaped by three abiding passions: his devout Catholic faith, his study of birdsong (which he transcribed and incorporated into his scores with scientific precision), and his fascination with colour — he experienced synaesthesia, perceiving correspondences between specific chords and colours. His compositional techniques, including modes of limited transposition, non-retrogradable rhythms, and additive rhythmic processes drawn from Indian tala, were profoundly influential on the post-war avant-garde. He died in Clichy on 27 April 1992.