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.

References and further reading

• {{Book reference|Title=Messiaen|Author=Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone|Publisher=Yale University Press, New Haven and London|Year=2005|ID=ISBN 0-300-10907-5}}
• {{Book reference|Title=Conversations with Claude Samuel|Author=Olivier Messiaen and Claude Samuel (tr. E. Thomas Glasgow)|Publisher=Amadeus Press, Portland, Oregon|Year=1994|ID=ISBN 0-931340-67-5}}
• {{Book reference|Title=Rencontres avec Olivier Messiaen|Author=A. Goléa|Publisher=Julliard, Paris|Year=1960|ID=No ISBN}}
• {{Book reference|Title=Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time|Author=Paul Griffiths|Publisher=Faber and Faber, London|Year=1985|ID=ISBN 0-517-13534-X}}
• {{Book reference|Title=The Messiaen Companion|Author=Peter Hill (ed.)|Publisher=Faber and Faber, London|Year=1995|ID=ISBN 0-571-17033-1}}
• {{Book reference|Title=Images and ideas in modern French piano music: the extra-musical subtext in piano works by Ravel, Debussy, and Messiaen|Author=Siglind Bruhn|Publisher=Pendragon Press, Stuyvesant, N.Y.|Year=1997|ID=ISBN 0945193955}}
• {{Book reference|Title=L'?vre pour orchestre d'Olivier Messiaen|Author=Michèle Reverdy|Publisher=Editions musicales A. Leduc, Paris|Year=1988|ID=ISBN 2856890385}}
• {{Book reference|Title=For the end of time: the story of the Messiaen quartet|Author=Rebecca Rischin|Publisher=Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y.|Year=2003|ID=ISBN 0801441366}}