Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen ({{IPA2|m?sj??}} or {{IPA|/m?sj??/}}; December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist. He lived in Grenoble in the French Alps during World War I, and returned there during his summers, and in his retirement, to compose. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11, and numbered Marcel Dupré, Maurice Emmanuel and Paul Dukas among his teachers. He was appointed organist at the church of La Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post he held until his death.

Biography

Youth and studies

Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was born in Avignon into a literary family. He was the elder of two sons of Cécile Sauvage, a poet, and Pierre Messiaen, a teacher of English who translated the plays of William Shakespeare into French. Messiaen's mother published a sequence of poems, L'âme en bourgeon ("The Burgeoning Soul"), the last chapter of Tandis que la terre tourne ("As the World Turns"), which address her unborn son. Messiaen later said this sequence of poems influenced him deeply, and it was cited by him as prophetic of his future artistic career{{ref|prophetic_Sauvage}}.

Related Topics:
Avignon - Cécile Sauvage - Pierre Messiaen - English - William Shakespeare - French

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On the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Pierre Messiaen became a soldier, and their mother took the two boys to live with her brother in Grenoble. Here Messiaen became fascinated with drama, reciting Shakespeare to his brother with help of a home-made toy theatre with translucent backdrops made from old Cellophane wrappers{{ref|toy_theatre}}. At this time he also adopted the Roman Catholic faith. Later, Messiaen felt most at home in the Alps of the Dauphiné, where he had a house built south of Grenoble, and composed most of his music there{{ref|home_in_Dauphine}}.

Related Topics:
World War I - 1914 - Grenoble - Cellophane - Dauphiné

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He commenced piano lessons after having already taught himself to play. His interest embraced the recent music of French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and he asked for opera vocal scores for Christmas presents{{ref|vocal_scores_Xmas}}. During this period he started to compose.

Related Topics:
Piano - Claude Debussy - Maurice Ravel - Scores

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In 1918 his father returned from the war, and the family moved to Nantes. He continued music lessons; one of his teachers, Jehan de Gibon, gave him a score of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande, which Messiaen described as "a thunderbolt" and "probably the most decisive influence on me"{{ref|Pelleas}}. The following year Pierre Messiaen gained a teaching post in Paris, and the family moved there. Messiaen entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1919, aged 11.

Related Topics:
Nantes - Pelléas et Mélisande

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At the Conservatoire Messiaen made excellent academic progress, many times finding himself top of the class. In 1924, aged 15, he was awarded second prize in harmony, in 1926 he gained first prize in counterpoint and fugue, and in 1927 he won first prize in piano accompaniment. In 1928, after studying with Maurice Emmanuel, he was awarded first prize for the history of music. Emmanuel's example engendered in Messiaen an interest in ancient Greek rhythms and exotic modes. After showing improvisation skills on the piano Messiaen began to study the organ with Marcel Dupré, and from him he inherited the tradition of great French organists (Dupré had studied with Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne; Vierne in turn was a pupil of César Franck). Messiaen gained first prize in organ playing and improvisation in 1929. His composition teacher was Paul Dukas who instilled in Messiaen a mastery of orchestration, and in 1930 Messiaen won first prize in composition.

Related Topics:
Counterpoint - Fugue - Accompaniment - Maurice Emmanuel - Improvisation - Organ - Marcel Dupré - Charles-Marie Widor - Louis Vierne - César Franck - Paul Dukas

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While he was a student he composed his first published compositions, his nine Préludes for piano (the earlier Le banquet céleste was published subsequently). These already exhibit Messiaen's use of his preferred modes of limited transposition and palindromic rhythms (Messiaen called these non-retrogradable rhythms). His public debut came in 1931 with his orchestral suite Les offrandes oubliées. Also in that year he first heard a gamelan group, which sparked his interest in the use of tuned percussion.

Related Topics:
Modes of limited transposition - Palindromic - Non-retrogradable rhythm - Gamelan

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In 1931 Messiaen was appointed organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris, a post he was to hold for more than 60 years.

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La Jeune France, and Messiaen's war

In 1932, Messiaen married the violinist and fellow composer Claire Delbos. Their marriage inspired him to compose works for her to play (Thème et variations for violin and piano in the year they were married), and pieces to celebrate their domestic happiness (including the song cycle Poèmes pour Mi in 1936, which Messiaen orchestrated in 1937). Mi was Messiaen's affectionate nickname for his wife. In 1937 their son Pascal was born. Messiaen's marriage turned to tragedy when his wife lost her memory after an operation, and she spent the rest of her life in mental institutions{{ref|Delbos_tragedy}}.

Related Topics:
Claire Delbos - Song cycle

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In 1936, Messiaen, André Jolivet, Daniel-Lesur and Yves Baudrier formed the group La Jeune France ("Young France"). Their manifesto implicitly attacked the frivolity in much contemporary Parisian music, rejecting Jean Cocteau's manifesto Le coq et l'arlequin of 1918 in favour of a "living music, having the impetus of sincerity, generosity and artistic conscientiousness"{{ref|Jeune_France_purpose}}. Messiaen's career soon departed from this public phase, however, as the music Messiaen was composing at this time was not for public commissions or conventional concerts.

Related Topics:
André Jolivet - Daniel-Lesur - Yves Baudrier - Jean Cocteau

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In 1937 Messiaen demonstrated his interest in using the ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument, by composing the unpublished Fêtes des belles eaux for an ensemble of six, and he included a part for the instrument in many of his subsequent compositions.

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During this period Messiaen composed organ cycles, for himself to play. He arranged his orchestral suite L'Ascension for organ, replacing the orchestral version's third movement with an entirly new movement, one of Messiaen's most popular, Transports de joie d'une âme devant la gloire du Christ qui est la sienne ("Ecstacies of a soul before the glory of Christ, which is its own glory", usually just known as Transports de joie). He also wrote the extensive cycles La Nativité du Seigneur and Les corps glorieux. The final toccata of La Nativité, Dieu parmi nous ("God among us") has become another favourite recital piece, often played separately.

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At the outbreak of World War II Messiaen was called up into the French army, as a medical auxiliary rather than an active combatant due to his poor eyesight{{ref|Messiaen_callup_eyesight}}. In May 1940 he was captured at Verdun, and was taken to Görlitz where he was imprisoned at prison camp Stalag VIIIA. He soon encountered a violinist, a cellist, and a clarinettist among his fellow prisoners. Initially he wrote a trio for them, but gradually incorporated this trio into his Quatuor pour la fin du temps ("Quartet for the End of Time"). This was first performed in the camp to an audience of prisoners and prison guards, the composer playing a poorly maintained upright piano, in freezing conditions in January 1941. Thus the enforced introspection and reflection of camp life bore fruit in one of 20th-century European classical music's acknowledged masterpieces. The "end of time" of the title is not purely an allusion to the Apocalypse, the work's ostensible subject, but also refers to the way in which Messiaen, through rhythm and harmony, used time in a way completely different from the music of his contemporaries.

Related Topics:
World War II - Görlitz - Quatuor pour la fin du temps - Apocalypse

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Tristan, and serialism

Shortly after his release from Görlitz in May 1941, Messiaen was appointed a professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire, where he taught until his retirement in 1978. He also devoted some time to compiling his Technique de mon langage musical ("Technique of my musical language") published in 1944, in which he quotes many examples from his music, particularly the Quartet.

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Among Messiaen's early students at the Conservatoire were composer Pierre Boulez and pianist Yvonne Loriod. Other pupils later included Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1952. The Greek Iannis Xenakis was briefly referred to him in 1951; Messiaen provided encouragement and exhorted Xenakis to take advantage of his background in mathematics and architecture, and use them in his music. Although Messiaen was only in his mid-thirties his students of the period later reported that he was already an outstanding teacher{{ref|outsanding_teacher}}, encouraging them to find their own voice rather than imposing his own ideas.

Related Topics:
Pierre Boulez - Yvonne Loriod - Karlheinz Stockhausen - Iannis Xenakis

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In 1943 Messiaen wrote Visions de l'Amen ("Visions of the Amen") for two pianos for Loriod and himself to perform, and shortly afterwards composed the enormous solo piano cycle Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus ("Twenty gazes on the child Jesus") for her. He also wrote Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine ("Three small liturgies of the Divine Presence") for female chorus and orchestra which includes a difficult solo piano part, again for Loriod. Messiaen thus continued to bring liturgical subjects into the piano recital and the concert hall.

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In 1945 Messiaen composed the first of three works on the theme of human (as opposed to divine) love, particularly inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde. This was the song cycle Harawi. The second of the Tristan works was the result of a commission from Serge Koussevitsky for a piece (Messiaen stated that the commission did not specificy the length of the work or the size of the orchestra); this was the ten-movement Turangalîla-Symphonie. This is not a conventional symphony, but rather an extended meditation on the joy of human love and union. It lacks the sexual guilt inherent in, say, Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, because Messiaen's attitude was that sexual love is a divine gift{{ref|sexual_love}}. The third piece inspired by the Tristan myth was Cinq rechants for twelve unaccompanied singers, which Messiaen said was influenced by the alba of the troubadours{{ref|rechants_alba}}.

Related Topics:
Tristan - Isolde - Serge Koussevitsky - Turangalîla-Symphonie - Symphony - Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde - Alba - Troubadour

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Messiaen visited the United States in 1947, his music being conducted there by Koussevitsky and Leopold Stokowski, and his Turangalîla-Symphonie was first performed there in 1949 conducted by Leonard Bernstein. During this period, as well as being given an analysis class at the Paris Conservatoire, he also taught in Budapest in 1947, Tanglewood in 1949, and in the summers of 1949 and 1950 he taught classes at Darmstadt. After teaching analysis of serial scores such as Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire for many years he became interested in using serialism himself, taking the concept further than previous composers by introducing serialism of timbres, intensities and durations. The results of these experiments were pieces such as Modes de valeurs et d'intensités for piano which have been described as the first works of total serialism. During this period he also experimented with musique concrète, music for recorded sounds.

Related Topics:
United States - Leopold Stokowski - Leonard Bernstein - Analysis - Budapest - Tanglewood - Darmstadt - Serial - Arnold Schoenberg - Pierrot lunaire - Timbre - Musique concrète

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Birdsong, and the 1960s

In 1951 Messiaen was asked to provide a test piece for flautists wishing to enter the Paris Conservatoire, and Messiaen composed the piece Le merle noir for flute and piano. Although Messiaen had long been fascinated by birdsong, and birds had made appearances in several of his earlier works (for example La Nativité, Quatuor and Vingt regards), the flute piece is based entirely on the song of the blackbird. This development was taken to a new level with the orchestral work Réveil des oiseaux in 1953  — the work is composed almost entirely of birdsong, taking as its material the birds one might hear between midnight and noon in the Jura. From this period onwards Messiaen incorporated birdsong into all of his compositions, and indeed he composed several works for which birds provide the title and subject matter (for example the collection of thirteen pieces for piano Catalogue d'oiseaux completed in 1958, and La fauvette des jardins of 1971), although these works are sophisticated tone poems evoking place and atmosphere rather than simply transcriptions of birdsong. Paul Griffiths points out that Messiaen was a more conscientious ornithologist than any previous composer, and a more musical observer of birdsong than any previous ornithologist{{ref|scientific_musical_ornithologist}}.

Related Topics:
Flautists - Blackbird - Jura

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In 1959 Messiaen's first wife died following her long illness, and in 1961 he married Yvonne Loriod. He began to travel widely, both to attend musical events, and to seek out and transcribe the songs of more exotic birds. In 1962 his travels took him to Japan, and he was inspired by Japanese Gagaku music and Noh theatre to compose the orchestral "Japanese sketches", Sept haïkaï, which contains stylised imitations of traditional Japanese instruments.

Related Topics:
Japan - Gagaku - Noh

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Messiaen's music was at this time championed by, among others, Pierre Boulez, who programmed first performances at his Domaine musical concerts, and the Donaueschingen festival. Works performed here included Réveil des oiseaux, Chronochromie (commissioned for the 1960 festival) and Couleurs de la cité céleste. The latter piece was the result of a commission for a composition for three trombones and three xylophones; Messiaen added to this more brass, wind, percussion and piano, and specified a xylophone, xylorimba and marimba rather than three xylophones. Another work of this period, Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorem, was commissioned as a commemoration of the dead of the two World Wars, and was first performed semi-privately in the Sainte-Chapelle, and then publicly in Chartres Cathedral with Charles de Gaulle in the audience.

Related Topics:
Domaine musical - Donaueschingen - Trombone - Xylophone - Xylorimba - Marimba - Sainte-Chapelle - Chartres Cathedral - Charles de Gaulle

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His reputation as a composer continued to grow, and in 1966 he was officially appointed professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire (although he had in effect been teaching composition for years), and in 1967 he was elected to the Institut de France. In 1971, Messiaen was awarded the Erasmus Prize.

Related Topics:
Institut de France - Erasmus Prize

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Transfiguration, Canyons, St. Francis, and the Beyond

Messiaen's next work was the enormous La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ. This composition occupied Messiaen from 1965 to 1969 and the forces employed include a 100-voice ten-part choir, seven solo instruments and a large orchestra. Its fourteen movements are a meditation on the story of Christ's Transfiguration.

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Shortly afterwards Messiaen received a commission from the American Alice Tully for a work to celebrate the bicentenary of the United States Declaration of Independence. He arranged a visit to the USA in spring 1972, and was inspired by Bryce Canyon in Utah, which he visited, notating birdsong and colours there{{ref|Bryce_Canyon_visit}}. The ten-movement orchestral piece Des Canyons aux étoiles… was the result, which was first performed in 1974 in New York.

Related Topics:
Alice Tully - United States Declaration of Independence - Bryce Canyon - Utah

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Then, in 1975, Messiaen was asked for a piece for the Paris Opéra. Initially reluctant to undertake such a major project, Messiaen was finally persuaded to accept the commission and began work on his Saint-François d'Assise. Composition of this work was an intensive task (he also wrote his own libretto), occupying him from 1975-79, and then the orchestration was carried out from 1979 until 1983{{ref|opera_composition}}. The work (which Messiaen preferred to call a "spectacle" rather than an opera) was first performed in 1983. In 1978 Messiaen had retired from teaching at the Conservatoire.

Related Topics:
Paris Opéra - Saint-François d'Assise - Libretto - Opera

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It was thought by some commentators at the time of its first production that Messiaen's opera would be his valediction, but he continued composing, bringing out a major collection of organ pieces, Livre du Saint Sacrement, in 1984, as well as further bird pieces for solo piano and pieces for piano with orchestra. In 1988 tributes for Messiaen's 80th birthday around the globe included a performance in London of St. François, and the publication of a collection of 20 CDs of Messiaen's music by Erato including recordings by Loriod and a disc of the composer in conversation with Claude Samuel.

Related Topics:
London - Claude Samuel

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Messiaen's last composition resulted from a commission from the New York Philharmonic Orchestra; although he was in much pain near the end of his life (requiring repeated surgery on his back{{ref|back_pain}}) he was able to complete Eclairs sur l'au delà, which was performed six months after the composer died. Messiaen had also been composing a concerto for four musicians he felt particularly grateful to, namely Loriod, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the oboist Heinz Holliger and the flautist Catherine Cantin. This was substantially complete when Messiaen died, and the final movement's orchestration was undertaken by Yvonne Loriod with advice from George Benjamin.

Related Topics:
Cellist - Mstislav Rostropovich - Oboist - Heinz Holliger - Catherine Cantin

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