Messiaen is one of the most interesting 20th century composers. He was born in Avignon in 1908 and the family moved to Paris in 1919 whereupon Messiaen entered the Conservatoire at an early age leaving in 1930 and taking up the post of organist at La Trinité in Paris in 1932 where he played for over 60 years. That year he also married Claire Delbos, a violinist.
During the second world war he was called up for military service and after being captured and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp in Silesia he wrote the Quartet for the End of Time (‘Quatuor pour la fin du temps’) for the unusual combination of violin, cello, clarinet and piano, an ensemble dictated by the availability of musicians among his inmates. The first performance was given at the camp.
On his release he began to teach harmony at the Paris Conservatoire where his students included Pierre Boulez and his future wife Yvonne Loriod (his current wife Claire Delbos was by this time ill and died in 1959).
A devout catholic the religious dimension is an ever present aspect of his music as for example in the monumental piano work entitled ‘Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus’ (composed in 1944) which lasts approximately 2 hours and is dedicated to his wife Yvonne Loriod, a former pupil of his at the Paris Conservatoire, whom he married in 1960.
Besides the ‘Vingt Regards’ the 1940s also saw the composition of the massive Turangalîla Symphony, a work in ten movements for orchestra with a huge percussion section, piano and ondes martenot (which has a truly distinctive and alluring sound). Messiaen explains that Turangalîla is a Sanskrit word whose meaning encapsulates “love song, hymn to joy, time, movement, rhythm, life and death”.
The piano piece Cantéyodjayâ written in 1949 is in short titled sections many of which combine French and Sanskrit. Rhythmically some aspects of it bear comparison with the Quatre études de rythme from 1950 each of which includes a rhythmic analysis by the composer.
In fact Messiaen conducted an intensive study of rhythm and harmony which was brought together in his ‘Technique de mon langage musical’. Often his rhythms involve a juxtaposition of rhythmic values rather than a traditional western subdivision of time – for example the first rhythmic study opens with the rhythm crotchet, semiquaver, crotchet, two semiquavers, two quavers, crotchet etc which clearly does not divide into regular crotchet beats.
The second of these studies entitled ‘Mode de valueurs et d’intensités’ is based on a mode which serialises pitch, rhythmic values, touch and dynamics and therefore foreshadows integral serialism, the serialisation of all musical parameters which represented an extension of the serialism and twelve tone rows of the Second Vienese School.
Messiaen also had a passion for birdsong which he would transcribe on his walks in the woods and incorporate into his music – for example his output includes seven volumes entitled ‘Catalogue d'Oiseaux’ written in 1956 to 1958.
After this he wrote relatively little piano music. He died in 1992.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
I managed to chat to Pierre-Laurent Aimard briefly at a CD signing after he performed the Vingt Regards at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in February 2008.
Selected compositions - click for more info (I don't have a score for the Quatuor pour la fin du temps so I'll have to manage without and my score of the Turangalîla Symphony only shows the piano part - but that's fine!)
Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus
I: Regard du Père
II: Regard de l'étoile
III: L'échange
IV: Regard de las Vierge
V: Regard du Fils sur le Fils
VI: Par lui tout a été fait
VII: Regard de la Croix
VIII: Regard des hauters
IX: Regard du temps
X: Regard de l'Esprit de joie
XI: Première communion de la Vierge
XII: La parole toute-puissante
XIII: Noël
XIV: Regard des Anges
XV: Le baiser de l'Enfant-Jésus
XVI: Regard des prophètes, des bergers et des Mages
