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Photos and images of Olivier Messiaen and related life events Gallery GalleryTop Copyright exists on all of these photographs. Downloading and electronic reproduction of any image is illegal without the express permission of the copyright owner. Plaque overlooking Lac Laffrey, Petichet. Plaque in homage to Messian, baptized at the Saint Didier church in Avignon on December 25, 1908 1. 2. Messiaen, Yvonne Loriod and John Carewe in rehearsal at the Royal Academy of Music London March 1987 3. Salle d'Olivier Messiaen in Grenoble On October 2, 1981, the Marcel Reymond amphitheater, rue du Vieux Temple, was renamed "Salle Olivier Messiaen". On January 20, 1984, Olivier Messiaen was made an honorary citizen of the city of Grenoble. © Messiaen in USA 1978 4. 5. 7. 6. Eglise de la Sainte Trinité. Paris ©M.Ball The tombe of Messiaen in the Eglise Saint Théoffrey, Petichet, France. © Malcolm Ball 8. 9. 10. 11 In 1973, Olivier Messiaen acquired a concession in the Saint-Théoffrey cemetery. His will was to be buried near the lakes, facing the Grand-Serre which he called the "bald mountain". The tomb will be in Carrara marble and will represent a bird. To carry out this last wish, Yvonne Loriod contacted a local craftsman: Albert Luyat. Several drawings were submitted to her in Paris before she validated the dove's project during a visit to the marble factory. The curves of the bird form a flame of memory. An extract from "Harawi" - composed at Petichet in 1945 - "song of Love and Death, for voice and piano" is engraved by hand. "I only made one mistake but it was quickly corrected! remembers the marble worker. Above: "All the birds of the Stars", extract from "Harawi", and text by the hand of Messiaen. 13. 12. The headstone with 'Yvonne Messiaen' inscription (2010). 14. © John Stead 15. © John Stead Messiaen in the 1930's/40s & 50s) 16. 17. 18. (Photo©Lipnitzki) 19. 20 (Photo©Lipnitzki) Messiaen in the 1960's 21. 22. 23. ©T.Gaby © MB © MB Pierre Boulez, Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod 23a - 23b 25. Messiaen in 1978 24. Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod in the recording studio 1973. Messiaen in the 1970's 26. Messiaen in 1971 Messiaen receiving the Laureate Erasmus Prize 1971. Presented by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands In the foreground L-R, Queen Juliana, Messiaen, Yvonne Loriod, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. 27. 29. Messiaen in the 1980's 28. Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod 1986 in Düsseldorfer Tonhalle. (photo:© Christine Langensiepen) 30. Messiaen at the presentation for the degree of Doctor of Music at the Guildhall London. 30a. © Laelia Goehr (Musicians in Camera) 30b. © Laelia Goehr (Musicians in Camera) 31. 33. 32 33a. Messiaen with Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps score, possibly at the time of the recording of the work for video with Alain Moglia, Michel Arrignon, Sonia Wieder-Atherton and Jean-Claude Henriot (Le Quatuor Olivier Messiaen ) with Pierre Boulez Karlheinz Stockhausen and Messiaen in 1961 34 Stockhausen, Boulez and Messiaen in the 1980's 35. Messiaen's house at Petichet. © M.Ball 36. The studio 'annexe' at Petichet. © M.Ball 38. The "garage" at Messiaen's Petichet house. © M.Ball 37. Messiaen's piano at Petichet 39. 40. Lac Laffrey (2014)© M.Ball Messiaen purchased the small house and garage at Petichet in 1936 and he was to spend most summer months here where he composed a good deal of his output. Petichet was a haven for Messiaen where he was able to listen and note down songs of birds in relative peace. However, as years passed the onset of tourism became a source of irritation for him that resulted in the purchase of a second country home in the Sologne region. Petichet marks the starting point for walks to the Ecrins park and Mont-Blanc, but it is La Meije and the village of La Grave that make the strongest impression on him. Today, a summer festival takes place there to celebrate the life and works of Messiaen. 230 rue Marcadet Paris in the 18th arrondissement. The Paris residence shared by Messiaen and Loriod from 1961 to the composers death in 1992. Loriod continued to live here until her death in 2010. Loriod had a small studio apartment in this block and over the years the Messiaens expanded, purchasing other apartments within the block. It overlooks a small park with a band stand bearing a remarkable resemblance to the 'jardin de ville' in Grenoble where, as a young boy Messiaen enjoyed studying musical scores. 41. The rue Olivier-Messiaen is a private road located in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. 42. 43. Located in north central France, 'La Sauline' became the Messiaens second country retreat from 1981 to 1995. 44. © M.Ball. Used with kind permission of the present owners. Avenue Olivier Messiaen in Petichet. Petichet, in the commune of Saint-Théoffrey (Isère), joins the communes and towns in France, such as Paris, Toul, La Roche-sur-Yon and Chalon-sur-Saon, which have honoured Olivier Messiaen with a street named after him. Mr. Alain Mendez, mayor of the commune of Saint-Théoffrey, said that the local community had already decided in 2017 to honour the memory of the great composer in their town, where he had regularly come from Paris since 1936 to create his music. “Allée Olivier Messiaen ”, was the name given to the main street in Le Clos d’Eybains , a new housing estate under construction located above the first mayoral building on the Route Napoleon. The municipal council still includes the existing "Allée Yvonne Loriod ", and in 2021 and 2022 added the street names "Allée des Oiseaux " and "Allée de la Symphonie " (presumably referring to Turangalîla-symphonie ). In this case, the mountainous terrain from "Allée Olivier Messiaen " offers a magnificent view of the Grand Lac de Laffrey and the Le Grand Serre mountain on the opposite side of the lake. In his historic residence, now called the Olivier Messiaen House , standing on a slope leading to Lac Laffrey, the composer created all his greatest works, starting with Poèmes pour Mi and Les Corps glorieux. It was here that he composed and later rewrote the score of the opera Saint Francis of Assisi . The commune, thanks to the festival "Olivier Messiaen dans le pays de la Meije", lives the memory of the great composer, buried in the village cemetery at the church in Saint-Théoffrey. (Jerzy Stankiewicz) All photos ©Jerzy Stankiewicz 2024 JerzyPhotos Pyrz Josef Pyrz Sculptor Josef Pyrz (1946 - 2016) was born in Gawlowek, Poland but moved to France in 1979. Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod became great friends with the Pyrz family after seeing sculptures by him in churches in Paris and in the Sologne region. Pyrz and his family fell on hard times in the 1980's and Messiaen wanted to help him out by financial support and commissioned a sculpture of St. François d'Assise that was displayed at the Paris Opéra Garnier, during the 1983 performances of the work. 45. Eglise Notre Dame des Bruyères in Neuvy-sur-Barangeon where the 'Messiaens' worshipped in the Sologne region. 46. © M.Ball Sculpture of Messiaen by Josef Pyrz outside Eglise Notre Dame des Bruyères in Neuvy-sur-Barangeon 47. Monument funéraire des grands-parents, oncles et tantes du compositeur Olivier Messiaen. La statue " L'énergie foudroyée" est une reproduction d'une oeuvre de Léon Messiaen, oncle du compositeur qui fut Premier prix de sculpture des Beaux-Arts de Paris, réalisée en 1915 et exposée en 1919 sur les Champs-Elysées. Tomb of grandparents, aunts and uncles of Olivier Messiaen. The statue "The energy struck by lightning" is a reproduction of a work of Leon Messiaen, the composer's uncle who was first prize winner for sculpture des Beaux-Arts in Paris, constructed in 1915 and exhibited in 1919 on the Champs-Elysées. In the churchyard of La Chaise, near Fuligny, graves of the grand parents, uncles and aunts of Olivier Messiaen. Léon Messiaen The house at Fuligny in Aube region where Messiaen would visit his aunts in the 1920's and where he wrote the Préludes, Le Banquet eucharistique for orchestra and the organ work derived from part of it, Le Banquet céleste. Les Offrandes oubilees and Le Tombeau replendissant. This plaque marks the house where Messiaen and his family lived after WW1 from 1918 to 1919. 1 place des Enfants Nantais, Nantes. 48. 49. Messiaen spent his early childhood here at 2 cours Berriat, Grenoble. © Colin Samuels 50. © John Stead 52. 51. © Malcolm Ball La Meiji Copyright exists on all of these photographs. Downloading and electronic reproduction of any image is illegal without the express permission of the copyright owner.

The French pianist Yvonne Loriod YLTop © Copyright protected YVONNE LORIOD-MESSIAEN (1924 ~ 2010) 1. 2. 3. Yvonne Loriod was born 20 January 1924 in Houilles (Seine et Oise) [Parents Simone and Gaston Loriod and two sisters, Jacqueline and Jeanne Loriod] and died in Saint-Denis, near Paris, on May 17, 2010. She began studying the piano at the age of six with her godmother Madame Eminger-Sivade and by the age of fourteen her repertoire included all the Mozart concertos, all the Beethoven sonatas, the Bach '48' as well as the standard classical and romantic works. When she entered the Paris Conservatoire she also studied harmony, fugue, orchestration and composition enabling her in later life to proof read Messiaens' scores and compile the vocal score for Saint Francois d'Assise . Her teachers were Isidor Philipp, Lazare Levy, Marcel Ciampi, Simone Caussade, Joseph Calvet, C. Estyle as well as Messiaen and Milhaud. During her time at the conservatoire she had won seven premier prix. Although Loriod wrote several works including Grains de cendre* (1946) for Ondes Martenot or flute, piano and voice, Cascatelle dans les roseaux for percussion, Ondes Martenot, 2 violins, 2 balafons (African xylophone), wine glasses and guitar, Pièce sur la souffrance, pour orchestre , probably the only one to be performed in public was Trois Mélopées africaines for flute, ondes Martenot, piano and drum. This was performed with Ginette Martenot, Jan Merry, flute, and percussionist Jacques Boucher on 24th March 1945 at the Société Nationale. YVONNE LORIOD Compositrice Some reflections on the 2024 Festival Messiaen au pays de la Meije at La Grave ©Malcolm Ball Being blessed with the most beautiful weather during the 21st and 24th July would have been enough in this stunning location that Messiaen always treated as his inspirational homeland, but being privileged to attend two concerts of works by his wife Yvonne Loriod was simply amazing and unthinkable ten years ago. After Loriod’s death in May 2010, plans were put in place to move all the contents of the Messiaen’s home in Paris to the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) for collation and logging of both Messiaen and Loriod’s artefacts that included all manuscripts and papers hitherto not seen outside of their Parisian home. Over time the BnF and the Fondation Olivier Messiaen have been able to make some of these scores available to researchers and scholars that in Loriod’s case has led to concert productions at La Grave of some of her compositions written between 1943 and 1951. Two such scholars are Peter Azimov and Christopher Murray who were present at the festival and gave fascinating and erudite insights into the works performed both at the concerts and a separate lecture on Loriod’s life and work both as composer and concert pianist. Peter Azimov has also written an extended study of Loriod’s early compositions in a chapter titled: ‘Yvonne Loriod, ultramodernist: preliminary glimpses of a compositional legacy’ that is published in ‘ Women Composers in New Perspectives, 1800-1950: Genres, contexts and repertoire’ edited by Mariaterwsa Storino and Susan Wollenberg (Turnout: Brepols, 2023). ©Bruno-Moussier The Loriod works were marvellously intriguing and really brought home just how unashamedly experimental she was as a young composer. The concert on the 21st July presented The Trois pièces pour deux pianos (1951): 1. La Martelée 2, La Murmurée and 3. Gamelhang, played immaculately by Roger Muraro and Florent Boffard,. These beautiful sound canvases were inspired by the prepared piano works of John Cage, however, not having access to Cage’s scores that were unpublished at the time, she developed new preparation systems to achieve original and strikingly colourful timbres. ©Malcolm Ball After the interval when the pianos had to be ‘unprepared’ and re-tuned, the concert concluded with Messiaen’s Visions de l'Amen that was spiritually uplifting in the intimate surrounds of the Eglise de La Grave church interior and the vastness of the mountains that it occupies. After introductions by Bruno Messina (Festival Director) and Peter Azimov, the second concert on the 22nd July brought together the varied talents of Ensemble TM+ beginning with Préludes 1 and 2 by Messiaen that set the mood well and given thoughtful if just a little workman-like renditions by pianist Julien Le Pape. Then came Loriod’s Trois Mélopées africaines (1943) for flute, piano, ondes Martenot and snare drum that was full of youthful dare reflecting her interest in non-Western musical cultures. Messiaen’s Vocalise-Etude (version for piano and voice) was given by Julien Le Pape, piano and Angèle Chemin, soprano, whose voice was not on top form, and intonation was distinctly bracing at times. No such problems with Le Merle Noir (Messiaen) where Anne-Cécile Cuniot’s flute engaged with vivid immediacy and assured instrumental acrobatics. ©Bruno-Moussier The concert concluded with Loriod’s Grains de cendre (1946) that was billed as a world premiere performance, but regular visitors to this website will be aware that the work was in fact performed by students of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris back in the spring of 2023 in both Paris and Cambridge UK as part of a study day focusing on the compositions of Yvonne Loriod. It is a cycle of eight songs for soprano, piano, and flute or ondes Martenot (ondes Martenot was favoured for this performance). The lyrics are written by Loriod herself and inspired by Arabic poems. They depict “a young girl in need of love who expresses herself in surrealistic fantasies and delirious wordplay” (Peter Azimov). The work suggests similarities, both musical and lyrical with Messiaen’s song cycle Harawi (1945) but should be judged on its creative merits, and both cycles are equally emotionally powerful with Grains de cendre having the extra dimension of the trio ensemble. The performance maintained sustained intensity while balancing moments of deadly aggression with utter tranquillity, and Nathalie Forget’s ondes was always expressively nuanced, and her liquidity of phrasing was often wonderous. Now that these works have finally come to light, it is hoped that in this centenary year (2024) of Loriod’s birth, will see the publication of some of the works and possibly a recording so her music can be widely available globally. Grains UK Premiere of Grains de cendre The Cambridge Festival Concert of Music by Yvonne Loriod and Olivier Messiaen Robinson College, Cambridge 1 April 2023 at 4pm pre-concert talk by Christopher Brent Murray and Peter Asimov at 3pm Grains de cendre (1946) (U.K. premiere) Yvonne Loriod (1924–2010) • Margaux Poguet, soprano Kevin Plante, ondes Martenot Robin Le Bervet, piano Harawi: chants d’amour et de la mort (1945) Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) Hannah Dienes-Williams, soprano Gregory May, piano Download full concert programme here . * See article by Peter Asimov here. L to R Margaux Poguet, Gregory May, Hannah Dienes-Williams, Robin Le Bervet, Kevin Plante. Photo: Charlie Draper Yvonne Loriod's Piano class at the Paris Conservatoire March 1989 ©Véronique Marie Ngo Sach-Hien. We thank her for this contribution. From Yvonne Loriod's student exercise or work book. A page from the score of 'Cascatelle dans les roseaux ' for percussion, Ondes Martenot, 2 violins, 2 balafons (African xylophone), wine glasses and guitar. 4. A rare recording of Loriod performing La naissance du geste pour piano et orchestre (The birth of gesture) by Alain Bancquart. Bancquart did much to champion and promote contemporary music. In 1967 he began to study micro-intervals, working to integrate them in musical syntax, at times going so far as greatly to modify the scordatura of certain instruments. In the same spirit he created, with Tolia Nikiprowetsky, a workshop for instrumental music. This workshop, though short-lived (from 1969 to 1970), had as its aim the study of the problems of contemporary instrument making together with the relationships of instruments with contact microphones. He was also the instigator of the creation of the Cdmc (Centre de Documentation de la Musique Contemporaine), and of MFA, Musique Française d’Aujourd’hui, a support body for phonographic recordings. Yvonne Loriod – Orchestre de chambre de la RTF, direction Serge Baudo. France, Paris, Maison de la RTF – 1962 – ORTF, Paris. La naissance du geste pour piano et orchestre Yvonne Loriod 00:00 / 14:41 Submitted by Nicholas Armfelt Submitted by Nicholas Armfelt Friday 28 June 1957 is unlikely to feature prominently in history books. It is not going to go down in infamy, either politically or musically. Britain was nearing the end of a heat-wave, which may explain in part the pitifully small audience of two to three dozen that attended a concert in St Michael-le-Belfrey, a small church that nestles in the shadow of York Minster. There was just one piece on the programme, Messiaen’s Vingt Regards, and the pianist, as in all of the early performances, was Yvonne Loriod. As Colin Mason noted in the Manchester Guardian, Hans Hess, the director of the York Festival, ‘needed not merely courage but a very cool nerve indeed to put this before a festival audience’.1 While the meagre audience may not have done much for festival finances, the concert still reaped a significant dividend for it marked a key moment in the reception of Messiaen’s music in Britain. Until this point, reaction in the mainstream press tended to be hostile or, at best, a grudging acknowledgement of Messiaen’s technical skills strongly tempered by overt distaste for the results. A significant portion of the small audience at the York performance of Vingt Regards numbered critics, one or two doubtless begrudging missing the evening sunshine in order to fulfil their duties. And yet, this little known event was the first in Britain where Messiaen’s music received broadly positive, even enthusiastic coverage. (Abstract from 'Yvonne Loriod as Source and Influence' Christopher Dingle - Messiaen Perspectives 1 ) YLRecs She performed 22 of Mozart's concertos in a single week with the Lamoureux Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna, and Louis Martin and first performed with Messiaen in 1943 for the premiere of his Vision de l'amen. She and Boulez premiered Boulez's Structures, Book 2, in 1961 at Donaueschingen and she taught both at the Paris Conservatoire (1967-89 where she was the youngest professor) and at Darmstadt. Her American debut was the world-premiere performance of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie with Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1949. Her phenomenal memory enabled her to learn Bartok's Second Piano Concerto in eight days ready for the first performance at Théatre des Champs-Élyées in Paris on 15th November 1945 with Orchestre National conducted by Manuel Rosenthal. 5. 6. Yvonne Loriod was one of the pupils in Messiaen's first class that he held at the Paris Conservatoire after repatriation on the 7th May 1941. She says of that first encounter that 'all the students waited eagerly for this new teacher to arrive and finally he appeared with music case and badly swollen fingers, a result of his stay in the prisoner of war camp. He proceeded to the piano and produced the full score of Debussys' Prelude á l'apres-Midi d'un Faune and began to play all the parts. The whole class was captivated and stunned and everyone immediately fell in love with him'. Messiaen quickly saw in Yvonne Loriod somebody whose dazzling technique and phenomenal memory could interpret his music as he saw it and anything he wrote was possible to play through her. Messiaen once described her as 'unique, sublime and a brilliant pianist, whose existence transformed not only the composer's way of writing for the piano, but his style, vision of the world and modes of thought' (Goléa 1960). Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus, Visions de l'Amen, Catalogue d'Oiseaux, La Fauvette des Jardins, Petites esquisses d'oiseaux and most of the piano parts in his orchestral works are all dedicated to her. 7. When Messiaen wanted to collect birdsong in the 'field', Yvonne Loriod would drove him round the country in her Renault as he recorded what he called "God's musicians". She later recalled: "He notated the birdsong, and in the evenings he would make a more detailed score. He adored wildlife. He wouldn't even kill a mosquito. One day in the country his score was covered with flying ants. 'Can't you get rid of them?' he asked me, 'but don't hurt them.' I took the score outdoors and got the insecticide." Their working and personal relationship developed over the years and on the 1st July 1961 Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod were married. She has edited Messiaen's massive Traité de rythme, de couleur et d'ornithologie and continued to perform through the 1990s including an appearance at the Barbican in 1999, adjudicating at competitions, including the triennial Concours Olivier Messiaen, Bayreuth, Paris, Munich, Leeds, Aspen and various Messiaen festivals and was Chair for Piano Masterclasses at the Badische Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe. Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen passed away on17th of May 2010, at 17h 30 (5h 30 PM), in Saint Denis, near Paris. She died in peace, in the presence of her sister Jacqueline and the catholic priest in charge of the community in Saint Denis. Her recordings achieved 12 Grand Prix du Disque awards. The British premiere of Turanglîla Symphonie took place in a BBC studio broadcast in June 1953 under Walter Goehr. According to The Times, Yvonne Loriod "played the solo piano part brilliantly". She was, however, suspicious of the BBC and always insisted on receiving her fee in cash before a performance. A small, snug lady known as Tante Yvonne – then devoted herself to his (Messiaen's) memory, and discovered and published forgotten works that she found among his papers. The author Alex Ross notes how the conductor Kent Nagano, when asked for a revealing anecdote about the couple, could come up with no more than a tale of how they once devoured an entire pear tart in one go. She never called her husband by his first name, only Messiaen or maître. All she wished for, she told interviewers, was "a good death, so that I can go to heaven and be by his side". Click here to view a letter written by Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen to music writer (and synaesthes) Louis Latourre three weeks after Messiaen's death. A copy of this letter has been added to other Messiaen documents held at the church La Trinité Paris. 8. Yvonne Loriod (non Messiaen) Recordings Archive As well as the recordings listed here, Yvonne Loriod made many other recordings by composers other than Messiaen. Many I'm sure lay in various radio station archives around the world. Long since deleted items include: Bach - Prelude and Fugue in C sharp minor and Prelude in C sharp major. Pathé 78 PDT 110 Bach - Chaconne arr. Busoni. Pathé 78 PDT 149/150 Chopin - Barcarolle in F sharp Op.60. Pathé 78 PDT 152 Messiaen -Vingt Regards excerpts. Pathé 78 PDT 170/113 Messiaen - Preludes 5.1 & 3 Pathé PDT 132 The British Library Sound Archive also hold a copy of Debussy - En Blanc et Noir performed with Pierre Boulez recorded by the BBC in 1965. Here is a selection of her recorded output Back to top Hear and see one of her last interviews covering her lifetime in music: 'Musique Mémoires' with Bruno Serrou, INA France. Homélie du père Jean-Rodolphe Kars pour la messe de funérailles d’Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen Eglise de la Sainte Trinité, Paris 25 mai 2010 Olivier Messiaen et Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen (années 80) Lectures (choisies pour cette célébration, par le Père Jean-Rodolphe Kars) Du livre de l’Apocalypse de Saint Jean. [Apocalypse 21] Puis je vis un ciel nouveau, une terre nouvelle - car le premier ciel et la première terre ont disparu, et de mer, il n'y en a plus. Et je vis la Cité sainte, Jérusalem nouvelle, qui descendait du ciel, de chez Dieu ; elle s'est faite belle, comme une jeune mariée parée pour son époux. J'entendis alors une voix clamer, du trône : "Voici la demeure de Dieu avec les hommes. Il aura sa demeure avec eux ; ils seront son peuple, et lui, Dieu-avec-eux, sera leur Dieu. Il essuiera toute larme de leurs yeux : de mort, il n'y en aura plus ; de pleur, de cri et de peine, il n'y en aura plus, car l'ancien monde s'en est allé." Alors, Celui qui siège sur le trône déclara : "Voici, je fais l'univers nouveau." Evangile selon Saint Jean. [Jean 6] Après avoir multiplié les pains, Jésus disait à la foule : "Je suis le pain de vie. Vos pères, dans le désert, ont mangé la manne et sont morts ; ce pain est celui qui descend du ciel pour qu'on le mange et ne meure pas. Je suis le pain vivant, descendu du ciel. Qui mangera ce pain vivra à jamais. Et même, le pain que je donnerai, c'est ma chair pour la vie du monde." …"En vérité, en vérité, je vous le dis, si vous ne mangez la chair du Fils de l'homme et ne buvez son sang, vous n'aurez pas la vie en vous. Qui mange ma chair et boit mon sang a la vie éternelle et je le ressusciterai au dernier jour. Car ma chair est vraiment une nourriture et mon sang vraiment une boisson. Qui mange ma chair et boit mon sang demeure en moi et moi en lui. De même que le Père, qui est vivant, m'a envoyé et que je vis par le Père, de même celui qui me mange, lui aussi vivra par moi. Voici le pain descendu du ciel ; il n'est pas comme celui qu'ont mangé les pères et ils sont morts ; qui mange ce pain vivra à jamais." Homélie (with English translation) - Le 14 mai 1992, en cette église de la Sainte Trinité, la messe solennelle de Requiem pour Olivier Messiaen était célébrée. Bien entendu, Yvonne était présente, très émue et profondément recueillie. Elle était là, avec ses deux sœurs, Jacqueline à nouveau présente aujourd’hui, et Jeanne Loriod, rappelée depuis, à Dieu, en 2001. Le célébrant de cette inoubliable célébration d’il y a dix-huit ans, lui aussi, nous a quittés en 2007. C’était le regretté Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archevêque de Paris. Et déjà, en 1992, Olivier Latry, titulaire des Orgues de Notre Dame de Paris, tenait l’orgue de la Trinité en cette occasion ; et le Chœur grégorien de Paris sous la direction de Louis-Marie Vigne, comme aujourd’hui, animait la liturgie. Dix-huit ans plus tard, nous voici réunis à nouveau pour accompagner Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen de notre prière et de notre affection profonde, dans sa Pâques, dans le grand passage de cette vie à la Vie nouvelle et éternelle. Le fait que tant d’éléments (que je viens de mentionner) soient communs entre la célébration d’il y a dix-huit ans et celle d’aujourd’hui, souligne d’emblée la relation absolument indissoluble entre les deux destinées : celle d’Olivier Messiaen et celle d’Yvonne Loriod. L’illustre et prodigieuse musicienne pianiste a maintenant rejoint son époux. D’ailleurs, si vous me permettez une note de naïveté, je dirais que la photo que vous avez sous les yeux est attendrissante et éloquente : les deux sont maintenant embarqués pour un long voyage dans l’immensité de l’Eternité, à la rencontre du Christ Jésus, qui était au cœur de leur vie, au cœur de leur amour mutuel, au cœur de leur créativité. On May 14, 1992, in this Church of the Holy Trinity, the solemn Requiem Mass for Olivier Messiaen was celebrated. Of course, Yvonne was present, very moved and deeply collected. She was there, with her two sisters, Jacqueline again present today, and Jeanne Loriod, since called to God in 2001. The celebrant of this unforgettable celebration of eighteen years ago, we too left in 2007. He was the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris. And already, in 1992, Olivier Latry, holder of the Orgues de Notre Dame de Paris, held the organ of the Trinity on this occasion; and the Gregorian Choir of Paris under the direction of Louis-Marie Vigne, as today, animated the liturgy. Eighteen years later, we are reunited again to accompany Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen with our prayer and our deep affection, in her Easter, in the great transition from this life to new and eternal Life. The fact that so many elements (which I have just mentioned) are common between the celebration of eighteen years ago and that of today, immediately underlines the absolutely indissoluble relationship between the two destinies: that of by Olivier Messiaen and that of Yvonne Loriod. The illustrious and prodigious pianist musician has now joined her husband. Moreover, if you allow me a note of naivety, I would say that the photo you have in front of you is touching and eloquent: the two are now embarked on a long journey in the immensity of Eternity, to meet of Christ Jesus, who was at the heart of their life, at the heart of their mutual love, at the heart of their creativity. Il est impossible, dans le cadre de cette célébration, de rendre compte de l’extrême richesse de la vie d’Yvonne. Grâce à son génie, à ses phénoménales capacités, elle a écrit tout un chapitre fascinant de l’Histoire de la musique contemporaine. Richesse manifeste par ses talents et ses prestations, bien sûr, mais aussi richesses intérieures, nécessairement plus connues de ses proches. Une extraordinaire générosité, et même une grande audace dans cette générosité, caractérisait sa relation avec ses amis, avec ses disciples qu’elle arrivait souvent à galvaniser. Son ouverture, son grand sens, très spontané, de l’hospitalité restera dans les mémoires. Et surtout la « cohabitation » en elle entre une inspiration parfois extrêmement élevée (pas seulement en musique, mais aussi en poésie, et même en intuitions théologiques et mystiques)… et un sens extraordinairement concret de l’organisation, et même des travaux domestiques les plus humbles. Au cours de cette célébration, aujourd’hui, il vous revient, chers amis, anciens collègues, anciens élèves d’Yvonne, anciens compagnons fidèles et témoins avec elle de grands événements culturels… et vous aussi les plus proches, les plus intimes,… il vous revient d’explorer dans votre mémoire, dans votre cœur, les inépuisables « archives intérieures » liées à la destinée d’Yvonne, ce qu’elle a été pour vous. It is impossible, in the context of this celebration, to account for the extreme richness of Yvonne’s life. Thanks to her genius, to her phenomenal abilities, she has written a whole fascinating chapter in the history of contemporary music. Wealth manifested by her talents and her services, of course, but also inner riches, necessarily better known to those close to her. An extraordinary generosity, and even a great audacity in this generosity, characterized her relationship with her friends, with her disciples, which she often managed to galvanize. Her openness, her great, very spontaneous sense of hospitality will be remembered. And above all the "cohabitation" in her between an inspiration that is sometimes extremely high (not only in music, but also in poetry, and even in theological and mystical intuitions) ... and an extraordinarily concrete sense of organization, and even of domestic work, more humble. During this celebration, today, it comes back to you, dear friends, former colleagues, former pupils of Yvonne, former faithful companions and witnesses with her to great cultural events ... and you also the closest, the most intimate, ... it is up to you to explore in your memory, in your heart, the inexhaustible “interior archives” linked to Yvonne's destiny, which she was for you. - Certes, nous savons bien que dans l’exploration de ces « archives intérieures », nous trouvons des zones d’ombre, des souvenirs parfois plus douloureux. Comme tout tempérament exceptionnel, celui d’Yvonne connaissait des fragilités. Cela fait partie de ce qu’on pourrait appeler la « météorologie » humaine. La vie humaine (et spirituelle) est analogue à une longue ascension en montagne. Le sentier passe parfois par des zones abruptes, la montée connaît des turbulences. A certains moments, les relations avec Yvonne pouvaient être orageuses. C’est lorsqu’on arrive enfin au sommet de la montagne et qu’on contemple toute la trajectoire d’en haut, que lumières et ombres s’unifient. Et à nous, qui célébrons cette liturgie, il nous revient de rassembler toute cette mémoire pour l’unifier en action de grâces à Dieu, Lui qui aujourd’hui accueille Yvonne et accomplit sa destinée dans sa Lumière, dans son Mystère d’Amour rédempteur. Il nous revient de rendre grâces pour ce qu’elle a été, et ce qu’elle est pour Dieu, et pour ce que Dieu a été, et est pour elle. - Of course, we are well aware that in the exploration of these "interior archives" we find gray areas, sometimes more painful memories. Like any exceptional temperament, Yvonne's was frail. It is part of what you might call human "meteorology". Human (and spiritual) life is analogous to a long mountain climb. The trail sometimes passes through steep areas, the climb is turbulent. At times, relations with Yvonne could be stormy. It’s when you finally get to the top of the mountain and contemplate the entire path from above, that lights and shadows unify. And to us, who are celebrating this liturgy, it is up to us to bring together all this memory to unify it in thanksgiving to God, He who today welcomes Yvonne and fulfills his destiny in his Light, in his Mystery of redemptive Love. . It is up to us to give thanks for what she was, and what she is for God, and for what God was, and is for her. - Car en définitive, ce qui a constamment fondé l’exceptionnelle énergie et l’exceptionnelle efficacité d’Yvonne, c’est sa foi intrépide. Une adhésion de tout son être au trésor de la foi catholique. Au-delà de ce qui pouvait parfois paraître comme l’expression d’une foi « naïve » – la foi du charbonnier – il y avait une compréhension fulgurante du Mystère du Christ, de la Trinité, de l’Eglise, des sacrements. Le sacrement de l’Eucharistie, avec sa promesse de Résurrection, telle que nous venons de l’entendre dans l’Évangile de Jean, était au cœur de sa vie, comme de celle d’Olivier. Il y a plus de quarante ans, une personne m’avait raconté, qu’ayant demandé à Yvonne où elle puisait toute cette confiance, cette assurance au sein d’initiatives parfois téméraires (il s’agissait de programmes de concerts appris en un temps record, avec des œuvres épuisantes de difficulté), Yvonne lui a fait cette réponse : « C’est simple, je me nourris de Jésus ». Réponse presque scandaleuse pour la raison « raisonnante »… réponse si proche des paroles mêmes de Jésus dans l’Évangile d’aujourd’hui : « Celui qui mange ma chair… a la vie éternelle ». Il y a une dizaine d’années, Yvonne (qui avait beaucoup de talents secrets) a écrit un poème admirable, inédit, en hommage à des prêtres âgés… On y trouve des accents proches du poème des « Trois Petites Liturgies… » d’Olivier Messiaen. Il me plaît de mentionner cet épisode en cette année sacerdotale voulue par Benoît XVI pour l’Eglise Catholique. - Because in the end, what has consistently founded Yvonne's exceptional energy and exceptional efficiency is her intrepid faith. A commitment of all one's being to the treasure of the Catholic faith. Beyond what might at times seem like an expression of "naive" faith - the faith of the coalman - there was a dazzling understanding of the Mystery of Christ, of the Trinity, of the Church, of the sacraments. The sacrament of the Eucharist, with its promise of Resurrection, as we have just heard it in the Gospel of John, was at the heart of his life, like that of Olivier. More than forty years ago, a person told me that having asked Yvonne where she drew all this confidence, this assurance within sometimes reckless initiatives (these were concert programs learned in a record, with exhausting works of difficulty), Yvonne gave him this answer: "It's simple, I feed on Jesus". An almost scandalous response for the "reasoning" reason ... a response so close to the very words of Jesus in today's Gospel: "He who eats my flesh ... has eternal life." About ten years ago, Yvonne (who had a lot of secret talents) wrote an admirable poem, unpublished, in homage to elderly priests… There are accents close to the poem of “Three Small Liturgies…” by Olivier Messiaen. I am pleased to mention this episode in this year for the priesthood desired by Benedict XVI for the Catholic Church. - Les dernières années de la vie d’Yvonne ont été très douloureuses. Sa foi rayonnante a été obscurcie par l’épreuve et par le dépouillement progressif et rapide de ses facultés. « Les toutes dernières années de la vie d’Yvonne ont été comme un déchirement, nous dit sa sœur Jacqueline. Depuis quatre ans, elle n’était plus celle qu’on avait connue. Elle l’est vraiment redevenue maintenant ». C’est le moment de remercier particulièrement les personnes ici présentes qui ont assisté Yvonne avec un dévouement inlassable jusqu’au moment du passage. En particulier sa sœur aînée Jacqueline… et les Petites Sœurs des pauvres de Saint Denis, tout particulièrement Mère Caroline et Mère Isabelle, ainsi que les autres sœurs, si dévouées et si proches au moment de l’épreuve. Nous voulons saluer avec affection Marie-France, fille de Jacqueline et nièce d’Yvonne ; et Martine, filleule d’Olivier et d’Yvonne. Qu’il nous soit permis aussi de remercier de tout cœur Olivier Latry et le Chœur grégorien de Paris pour leur participation intense à cette célébration. Enfin merci de leur présence amicale, reconnaissante et fidèle, aux amis, anciens élèves, organisateurs de concerts, éditeurs, compositeurs ayant bénéficié du génie et des phénoménales capacités d'Yvonne. - The last years of Yvonne’s life have been very painful. Her radiant faith has been clouded by trial and the gradual and rapid stripping of her faculties. “The very last years of Yvonne’s life have been heartbreaking,” her sister Jacqueline tells us. For four years she hadn't been the one we had known. She's really back to that now. " Now is the time to give special thanks to those in attendance who have assisted Yvonne with tireless dedication until the moment of passage. In particular her older sister Jacqueline ... and the Little Sisters of the Poor of Saint Denis, especially Mother Caroline and Mother Isabelle, as well as the other sisters, so devoted and so close at the time of the ordeal. We want to greet with affection Marie-France, daughter of Jacqueline and niece of Yvonne; and Martine, goddaughter of Olivier and Yvonne. May we also be allowed to thank Olivier Latry and the Gregorian Choir of Paris for their intense participation in this celebration. Finally, thank you for their friendly, grateful and faithful presence to friends, alumni, concert organizers, publishers, composers who have benefited from Yvonne's genius and phenomenal abilities. - Revenons un instant à la liturgie d'aujourd'hui. Dans la préface des défunts que nous entendrons tout à l'heure, il est écrit : « Pour tous ceux qui croient en Toi, Seigneur, la vie n'est pas détruite, elle est transformée ; et lorsque prend fin leur séjour sur la terre, ils ont déjà une demeure éternelle dans les cieux ». Cette assurance de transformation, de transfiguration, remplit le cœur du croyant d'une secrète jubilation. Et pour vous, amis qui peut-être ne partagez pas (ou pas encore) notre foi, que cette affirmation de l'Église fasse au moins naître une interrogation intérieure... une lumière, même si elle est encore ténue, qui fait poindre l'espérance... l'espérance que l'échec et la mort ne sont pas le point final de notre vie transitoire d'ici-bas. En fait, la liturgie que nous célébrons aujourd'hui nous fait entrevoir que notre propre vie peut, si nous le voulons bien, devenir « liturgie », célébration, qui nous conduit à la Jérusalem nouvelle (et pour nous encore invisible) dont parle la première lecture d'aujourd'hui. La vie d'Yvonne a été une liturgie, à travers lumières et ombres. Il me semble, chers amis, que toute la vie extérieure et intérieure d’Yvonne s'exprime comme en une sorte de synthèse à travers deux vidéos que vous pouvez trouver sur le site Internet You Tube. On la voit et on l'entend jouer une longue pièce ornithologique pour piano solo intitulée « Le Moqueur Polyglotte », neuvième pièce de l'œuvre orchestrale « Des canyons aux étoiles... » d'Olivier Messiaen. Toute Yvonne est là, dans son interprétation de cette pièce : son audace, son perfectionnisme, son humilité émerveillée, son jeu jubilatoire... Et quand les deux derniers accords retentissent et se prolongent en une longue résonance, on a presque la sensation du passage du monde visible à la mystérieuse Gloire, encore lointaine pour nous, de la Jérusalem d'en haut. - Let us return for a moment to today's liturgy. In the preface to the deceased that we will hear later, it is written: “For all those who believe in You, Lord, life is not destroyed, it is transformed; and when their sojourn on earth ends, they already have an eternal home in heaven ”. This assurance of transformation, of transfiguration, fills the heart of the believer with a secret jubilation. And for you, friends who perhaps do not (or not yet) share our faith, may this affirmation of the Church at least give rise to an interior questioning ... a light, even if it is still tenuous, which brings forth hope ... hope that failure and death are not the end point of our transitory life here below. In fact, the liturgy we are celebrating today gives us a glimpse that our own life can, if we wish, become a “liturgy”, a celebration, which leads us to the new Jerusalem (and for us still invisible) of which the first reading today. Yvonne's life has been a liturgy, through lights and shadows. It seems to me, dear friends, that all of Yvonne’s outer and inner life is expressed as a sort of synthesis through two videos that you can find on the You Tube website. We see and hear her playing a long ornithological piece for solo piano entitled "Le Mockeur Polyglotte", the ninth piece of the orchestral work "Des canyons aux étoiles ..." by Olivier Messiaen. All of Yvonne is there, in her interpretation of this piece: her daring, her perfectionism, her amazed humility, her jubilant playing ... from the visible world to the mysterious Glory, still distant for us, from Jerusalem above. - Nous voici revenus, tout naturellement, à ce que nous disions au début : la relation indissoluble des destinées d'Olivier Messiaen et d'Yvonne Loriod. Il a été dit et redit qu’elle n’a pas seulement été son interprète mais aussi son inspiratrice. Nous savons que la composition des « Visions de l’Amen », des « Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus », du « Catalogue d’oiseaux », est due en grande partie à la confiance de Messiaen en les capacités musicales et pianistiques prodigieuses d’Yvonne (qui, nous le rappelons, est devenue son épouse en 1961, deux ans après la mort de la première femme du compositeur, Claire Delbos). Puis, après le départ de Messiaen en 1992, nous avons cette somme qu’est le gigantesque « Traité de rythme, de couleurs et d’ornithologie » en sept volumes, qui n’a pu voir le jour que grâce au travail acharné d’Yvonne. Elle seule pouvait le faire. Elle a rendu, de manière cachée, un service inestimable aux générations futures, à tous ceux aussi qui n’ont pas eu la possibilité d’assister aux enseignements analytiques de Messiaen pendant près de quarante ans. Qu’elle soit particulièrement remerciée pour cela. - We are now back, quite naturally, to what we said at the beginning: the indissoluble relationship between the destinies of Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. It has been said over and over again that she was not only his interpreter but also his inspiration. We know that the composition of the "Visions of the Amen", of the "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus", of the "Catalogue d'oiseaux", is largely due to Messiaen's confidence in her musical and pianistic abilities, Yvonne's prodigious (who, we recall, became his wife in 1961, two years after the death of the composer's first wife, Claire Delbos). Then, after the departure of Messiaen in 1992, we have this summa which is the gigantic "Treatise of rhythm, colors and ornithology" in seven volumes, which could only see the light of day thanks to the hard work of Yvonne. Only she could do it. She has rendered, in a hidden way, an invaluable service to future generations, also to all those who have not had the opportunity to attend the analytical teachings of Messiaen for nearly forty years. Special thanks for this. - « Et Dieu essuiera toute larme de leurs yeux ». Ce verset du Livre de l’Apocalypse que nous avons entendu en première lecture nous amène à la conclusion de notre homélie. Ces paroles sont reprises par Messiaen comme titre de l’une des pièces de son œuvre orchestrale ultime « Eclairs sur l’Au-delà… ». Il s’agit de son œuvre ultime achevée. Cette œuvre est composée de onze pièces. Messiaen en avait esquissé les commentaires. C’est Yvonne, en fait, qui a réellement rédigé ces commentaires… Nous lui laissons la parole, avec des extraits du commentaire de la dixième pièce, « Le chemin de l’invisible », et de la onzième pièce, « Le Christ, lumière du Paradis ». En l’écoutant, nous l’accompagnons actuellement dans ce mystérieux pèlerinage de son âme, tel qu’elle semble l’avoir vécu à l’avance en rédigeant naguère ces notes, alors qu’elle était dans le deuil de son illustre époux. - "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes". This verse from the Book of Revelation that we heard on first reading brings us to the conclusion of our homily. These words are taken up by Messiaen as the title of one of the pieces from his final orchestral work " Eclairs sur l’Au-delà…". This is his ultimate completed work. This work is made up of eleven pieces. Messiaen had sketched the comments. It was Yvonne, in fact, who really wrote these comments ... We leave the floor to her, with excerpts from the commentary on the tenth play, "The path of the invisible", and the eleventh play, "Christ, light of Heaven ”. Listening to her, we are accompanying her at this time on this mysterious pilgrimage of her soul, as she seems to have experienced it in advance when writing these notes, while she was in mourning for her illustrious husband. Donc extraits du commentaire de la pièce « Le chemin de l’invisible » : « Il faut suivre ce chemin toute la vie. On n’arrive au bout qu’à l’heure de la mort […] Impression d’une foule qui gravit une montagne […] Aucun repos dans cette pièce […] Le chemin est long, la montée est dure. Seul le Christ peut éclairer cette voie aride et caillouteuse qui mène à la Paix sur le sommet de la montagne lumineuse. » So excerpts from the commentary for the play "The Path of the Invisible": "You have to follow this path all your life. We only arrive at the end of the hour of death […] Impression of a crowd climbing a mountain […] No rest in this room […] The road is long, the climb is hard. Only Christ can illuminate this arid and stony way which leads to Peace on the summit of the luminous mountain. " Et maintenant extraits du commentaire de la pièce « Le Christ, lumière du Paradis » : « C’est l’arrivée, le Bonheur, le Paradis, la Lumière qui est le Christ et qui éclaire l’Eternité […] Cette dernière (pièce) est l’aboutissement de toute la vie. La page est tournée, la terre est loin, le temps est aboli, c’est un présent de bonheur qui ne finira plus. L’Amour infini du Christ dans l’âme qui le contemple… » And now extracts from the commentary on the play "Christ, light of Paradise": "It is the arrival, Happiness, Paradise, the Light which is Christ and which illuminates Eternity [...] This last (play ) is the culmination of all life. The page is turned, the earth is far away, time is over, it is a gift of happiness that will never end. The infinite Love of Christ in the soul that contemplates him ... " Signé : Yvonne LORIOD-MESSIAEN C’est là qu’il faut la chercher désormais… là, dans ce que nous venons d’entendre… La réalité de sa vie se trouve là, et non pas dans la matière froide du tombeau. Amen. This is where she must be viewed for now ... there, in what we have just heard ... The reality of her life is there, and not in the cold matter of the tomb. Amen. Homélie 8a ©Laelia Goehr (Musicians in Camera) Thoughts and obituaries Muso magazine – August / September 2010 issue VISIONS Yvonne Loriod is synonymous with the music of Olivier Messiaen, but her legacy is an inspiration in its own terms, writes former pupil and pianist Matthew Schellhorn With the death of Yvonne Loriod on 17 May this year, the musical world lost not only a great pianist and teacher but also the catalyst behind some of the 20th century’s most extraordinary music. For some 50 years she was personally linked to Olivier Messiaen, first as his pupil, then as his muse and dedicatee, then as his wife and pre-eminent interpreter. She was also, to me and to many others, an inspiration. I first met Yvonne Loriod in 1994, two years after Messiaen’s death, when I was a pupil at Chetham’s School of Music. My music teacher had arranged for me to visit her in her dressing room at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, where she was giving a performance of Réveil des oiseaux that evening. I was already in love with Messiaen’s music, and was preparing to perform Visions de l’Amen – the first work written by Messiaen for Loriod, and which she and the composer premiered in 1943. It made a huge impression on me to meet the very person for whom the piece was written. Seeing Loriod perform in concert – on this occasion in partnership with her sister, Jeanne, on ondes Martenot – was also a wonderful spectacle: the two venerable ladies, dressed in matching multicoloured voluminous dresses, captivated the audience with irresistible flair and panache. Loriod’s playing was, in a word, extraordinary. A child prodigy, who had learned the whole of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas by the age of 14, her pianism was so mature and powerful by the time Messiaen met her in 1941 that it gave him a blank canvas. He is quoted as saying: ‘I could allow myself the greatest eccentricities because to her anything is possible. I knew I could invent very difficult, very extraordinary, and very new things: they would be played, and played well.’ While Messiaen’s early piano style had been rooted in organ-like textures, now he gave free rein to his imagination. So followed a stream of pieces written specifically with Loriod’s remarkable gifts in mind. After Visions de l’Amen came Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (‘Twenty gazes on the Christ-child’, 1944), and then the enormous Turangalîla-Symphonie (1946-48) – ‘like a piano concerto’, Messiaen described it. Many other works for piano and orchestra followed, but of all the works written for Loriod it is the epic piano cycle Catalogue d’oiseaux (‘Bird Catalogue’, 1956-58) that encapsulates how her incisive playing provided Messiaen with the ‘voice’ his music most required. In her great 1970 recording of the Catalogue, the rhythmic precision and the voicing is belied by the seeming naturalness of the playing. Loriod can be seen in many pictures following the composer in the fields and woods with a tape recorder. Messiaen, of course, delighted in the double entendre of Loriod’s name: in French, Le Loriot is the Golden Oriole, a bird that in the Catalogue has a movement of its own. It was my privilege to prepare the other solo bird pieces, La Fauvette des jardins (‘The Garden Warbler’, 1970) and the Petites esquisses d’oiseaux (‘Small Bird Sketches’, 1985), with Loriod in my mid-twenties. I remember her gift for (vocal) mimicry, and the enthusiasm with which she would continually rush to the bookcase to get books on birds – all duly described in purely anthropomorphic terms, of course. Most of all, I remember the joy she experienced hearing her husband’s music – she always referred to him as Messiaen – music she herself knew so well, and which she must have played and heard hundreds of times. Loriod was always inquisitive about the new music I was playing, and I was pleased to be able to tell her about the works I was premiering. Her championing of new music takes on a significance when one considers the lesser-known fact that she was a talented composer in her own right. She was modest about her unusual and intriguing musical works. Mostly premiered during the 1940s, they are characterised by their unusual combinations of instruments (Pièces africaines is scored for a bizarre ensemble of flute, oboe, ondes Martenot, guitar, bongos, timpani and two pianos, for example). It is perhaps this personal affinity with Messiaen’s vocation, combined with her other phenomenal skills, which gave this lady the edge in terms of her ability to communicate Messiaen’s music. Yvonne Loriod’s life and career testify to the fact that all new music needs passionate advocates, and all performers have a role to play in the creative process. Matthew Schellhorn Pianist Matthew Schellhorn and Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen in 2005 (Photo:©Matthew Schellhorn) YVONNE LORIOD-MESSIAEN – Obituary for International Record Review (June 2010) By Nigel Simeone Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen died at Saint-Denis, near Paris, on May 17, 2010, at the age of 86. Born on January 20, 1924 at Houilles (Seine-et-Oise), she studied the piano at the Paris Conservatoire – her teachers included Lazare-Lévy, Isidore Philippe and Marcel Ciampi – and composition with Darius Milhaud. But most important was her encounter on May 7, 1941 with the Conservatoire’s newly-appointed harmony teacher, Olivier Messiaen. Loriod recalled that first class in minute detail – Messiaen pulled a well-thumbed miniature score of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune from his pocket and told the class that it was one of the pieces that he had been allowed to take with him into the prison camp at Görlitz from which he had been liberated a few weeks earlier. It was a meeting that was soon to yield extraordinary results. The first came from a commission Messiaen received in December 1942 from Denise Tual for the Concerts de la Pléiade. In response to this, he composed Visions de l’Amen for two pianos. The first part – elaborate, virtuosic and brilliantly coloured – was written specifically to suit Loriod’s dazzling technique, while the second, dominated by large chords, was written for Messiaen to play. Loriod was just 19 years old when they gave the première of this piece at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris on 10 May 1943, one of the most significant first performances to be given in the city during the German Occupation. Loriod’s playing was to be a major source of inspiration for Messiaen over the next half century. Straight after Visions, he composed Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus using innovative techniques that evolved from Loriod’s playing. Messiaen wrote that the work “contains many pianistic traits and special effects – a small revolution in writing for the piano – that could certainly never have been realised if I hadn’t heard Yvonne Loriod’s earliest concerts.” Messiaen’s greatest piano works constitute a striking example of a composer’s style of writing being directly influenced by the performer for whom he was composing. The dedication of the printed score of the Vingt Regards reads simply “À Yvonne Loriod”, but an unpublished version suggests a deeper musical relationship: “À Yvonne Loriod, dont la technique égale le génie, et qui a compris ma mission” [To Yvonne Loriod, whose technique matches her genius, and who has understood my mission]. In the years to come, Messiaen composed solo and concerted works for piano all of which were written with Loriod in mind, including the flamboyant piano part of the Turangalîla-Symphonie (which Messiaen often described as “like a piano concerto”), to the grandest and most inventive of all his piano cycles, the Catalogue d’Oiseaux. The first complete performance of the Catalogue d’Oiseaux took place in April 1959, the same month that Messiaen’s first wife Claire Delbos died after many years of illness. Almost every weekend, Loriod had accompanied Messiaen to visit Claire in the nursing home where she spent the last few years of her life. Loriod’s devotion and support during this difficult and distressing time was of critical importance to Messiaen. Two years after Claire’s death, Loriod and Messiaen married, and spent their honeymoon in Japan. The musical result was another work for Loriod: the Sept Haïkaï. In Messiaen’s later years, many of his finest pieces were written for her, or featured important piano parts for her to play. As well as La Fauvette des jardins – Messiaen’s postscript to the Catalogue d’Oiseaux and his longest single movement for piano – he composed a number of works for piano and small orchestra or ensemble – including the marvellous Oiseaux exotiques, Couleurs de la Cité céleste and Des Canyons aux étoiles. His last solo piano work was the exquisite (but fiendishly difficult) set of miniatures Petites esquisses d’oiseaux. Loriod told the charming story of how this piece came as a complete surprise to her. In July 1985,Messiaen and Loriod arrived in Petichet to spend the summer months in the peace and quiet of the Dauphiné. For several weeks the composer told his wife that he was not to be disturbed in his studio as he needed to concentrate on correcting proofs. In fact, he was hard at work composing the Petites esquisses, which he presented one day to Yvonne as an entirely unexpected gift. From the start of her career, Loriod was an apostle for new music. She was encouraged to explore new music by her godmother Nelly Sivade – who had given Yvonne some of her earliest piano lessons. She gave a monthly series of private recitals in Mme Sivade’s house, starting in about 1940. The composers who came to hear her play their works included Jolivet, Honegger, Poulenc and Migot. Coincidentally, Mme Sivade lived at 53 rue Blanche, just up the road from La Trinité where Messiaen was organist. At the same time, she also learned Messiaen’s Préludes, and it was at Mme Sivade’s in 1943 that Loriod and Messiaen rehearsed Visions de l’Amen, and gave a private performance on the eve of its première to an audience of a dozen people including Poulenc, Jolivet and Honegger. She attended Messiaen’s private classes (held at Guy Bernard-Delapierre’s house) with Pierre Boulez whose music she played regularly, especially the Second Sonata and Structures: Loriod and Yvette Grimaud gave the first complete performance of Book I at Cologne in 1953, and Loriod and Boulez introduced Book II at Donaueschingen in 1961, as well as giving several early performances of the Second Sonata. Loriod certainly didn’t restrict herself to modern French repertoire. After two other French pianists had declared the work unplayable, she gave the successful Paris première of Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto (a concert reviewed enthusiastically by Messiaen among others), and was one of the few pianists in Paris in the 1950s to play the music of Berg, Schoenberg and Webern. In Autumn 1964, with Messiaen’s enthusiastic encouragement (which extended to writing several cadenzas for her – unpublished – as well as all the programme notes), Loriod gave a complete cycle of Mozart piano concertos in a marathon series of concerts with conductors including Boulez and Bruno Maderna. Though many of these pieces were still a rarity in the concert hall, Loriod had known them all since her teens (along with a dauntingly extensive repertoire of solo works). Loriod began making records in the mid-1940s for Pathé, recorded extensively for Véga/Adès in the 1950s, and subsequently for Erato, with appearances on other labels including Deutsche Grammophon and Koch. Her recorded legacy is substantial and, in some respects, surprising. Not only is there a large body of contemporary music, including all the works Messiaen composed for her (many of them recorded more than once) along with music by Boulez, Barraqué, Charles Chaynes, Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern, but there also some important cornerstones of the standard repertoire: Beethoven’s Hammerklavier, a dozen of the Chopin Études and Barcarolle, Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, Schumann’s Novelettes, solo works and concertos by Mozart, keyboard music by Bach, Debussy’s Études, and Albéniz’s Iberia – a set for which Messiaen wrote the sleeve notes – as well as the piano parts in Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Stravinsky’s Petrushka. At the Paris Conservatoire – where she was appointed as a piano professor in her 20s – Loriod’s pupils included several outstanding players of Messiaen’s music, notably Michel Béroff, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Roger Muraro, as well as George Benjamin (at the same time he was studying composition with Messiaen) and Paul Crossley. She was a devoted teacher, and following her retirement from the Conservatoire she gave advice to a number of younger players, including Steven Osborne and Matthew Schellhorn. Though Loriod was very reticent on the subject, she was a talented composer. Her Trois Mélopées africaines– for voice, flute and ondes Martenot – were performed at the Société Nationale de Musique in March 1945, and reflect her own interest in non-European music and literature, as well as her enthusiasm for unusual instrumental combinations. The following year her Petits poèmes mystiques were written for Marcelle Bunlet (Messiaen’s favourite dramatic soprano) and Irène Joachim (the legendary Mélisande), and an ensemble including several percussion instruments, piccolo, harp and piano. Grains de cendre, also written in 1946, is a song cycle for soprano, flute and piano using texts inspired by Arabic poetry and scored for voice, flute and piano. This was broadcast on October 15, 1948, by the soprano Gabrielle Dumaine, flautist Jacques Mule, and Loriod herself. An earlier set of Pièces africaines for instrumental ensemble dates from 1943. The four movements entitled Râga, Chanson soudanaise, Berceuse and Chant d’une Ksourienne, scored for the extraordinary combination of flute, oboe, ondes Martenot, guitar, bongos, timpani and two pianos. The influence of African and Arabian subjects is intriguing and shows considerable originality, not least because Messiaen and Milhaud (Loriod’s composition teacher) tended to look further East (to India) or West (to South America). After Messiaen’s death, Loriod continued to perform his music with undiminished vigour, but she also took on the gigantic task of co-editing Messiaen’s Traité de rythme, as well as preparing new editions of several works, and completing the Concert à quatre. In addition, she also worked for almost ten years on putting her husband’s archives in order. It was in connection with this that I had many encounters with Yvonne Loriod, and these are cherished memories. I saw her on a number of occasions between 2001 and 2005, and for three months in the autumn of 2002 I worked almost every day in the studio adjacent to her apartment, where she had carefully arranged Messiaen’s private archives, and – with great generosity – made it all available. Better still from my point of view, whenever I had questions about an event or a person, she was on hand to provide answers, and often told me much more than I had dared hope, providing detailed reminiscences, and speaking with moving candour about her evolving relationship with Messiaen. It was remarkable that at no point during the writing of the biography of Messiaen that I co-wrote with Peter Hill did she seek to intervene in any way. Instead she urged us not to write a hagiography, and to tell the story as we thought best; she gave blanket permission to use whatever documents we wanted, and saw none of the text until the finished book was printed. When the first copy came off the presses, I took it straight to Yvonne in Paris. She sat down with the book, sat me opposite, produced a large pot of strong coffee, and began to read. An anxious two hours later – and to my immense relief – she smiled broadly, and pronounced herself happy with the results. As well as a being serious-minded, utterly dedicated to the music she was playing, and expecting others to live and work by the same exacting standards that she set herself, Loriod had a whimsical and mischievous side too, and a wicked sense of humour. In particular, I remember a taxi journey from the Châtelet Theatre back to her flat in Montmartre in 2002. Myung-Whun Chung had just conducted a superb Turangalîla with Roger Muraro as an inspired soloist (“You know”, she said at the end, “it’s such a lovely change for me to hear someone else playing this piece!”). The cab ride afterwards yielded half an hour of delicious musical gossip that was as funny as it was (and is) unrepeatable. Her last public performance was in Berlin in 2002 (La Transfiguration, with Kent Nagano) but she continued to attend concerts of Messiaen’s music (including a few during the composer’s centenary year in 2008, when she was already very ill) and to serve on the jury of the Messiaen piano competition, until retreating from public life, spending her final years being cared for by the Petites Soeurs des Pauvres in Saint-Denis. Nigel Simeone 8b ©Laelia Goehr (Musicians in Camera) Yvonne Loriod: Pianist who became the muse and foremost interpreter of the works of her husband Olivier Messiaen Thursday, 20 May 2010. The Independent Yvonne Loriod's name will always be connected with that of her husband Olivier Messiaen, whose piano works she championed faithfully for six decades. Indeed, one of her best-known students, Paul Crossley, made a telling analogy: "The musical partnership of Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod was, I am quite certain, as important as that of Robert and Clara Schumann. Like Clara Schumann, Yvonne Loriod was muse, companion, adored wife, interpreter par excellence and – for lucky privileged people like me – inspired teacher." Messiaen was unstinting in his praise of this "unique, sublime and brilliant pianist, whose existence transformed not only the composer's way of writing for the piano, but his style, vision of the world and modes of thought". Pierre-Laurent Aimard, another of her star pupils, identified the change: "Before they met, his piano music reflected his organist's background: it was less virtuosic, less challenging, it had less variety. And all of a sudden he integrated all the brilliant pianistic ability of this young prodigy." Messiaen's music demands brilliance and precision and Loriod's complete technical control – her rhythmic accuracy, her control of tone, her pedalling, her ear for colour – made her its perfect vehicle. She began studying the piano at the age of six and at 11 transferred to her Austrian godmother, Nelly Eminger-Sivade. By the time she was 14, she had under her fingers all 32 Beethoven sonatas, the 48 Preludes and Fugues of Bach's Well-Templered Klavier, all the Mozart concertos, Chopin and Schumann, and most of the rest of the standard repertoire – she was, in Aimard's words, "a monster in the best sense of the term!" This rollercoaster of achievement continued at the Paris Conservatoire. Her piano teachers there read as a roll-call of the great and good in the French piano tradition: Isidor Philipp, Lazare-Lévy and Marcel Ciampi. She took Simone Caussade's fugue class, as well as studying harmony (with André Bloch), orchestration and composition. Her ability and appetite for work brought her no fewer than seven premiers prix at the Conservatoire. She would return to the Conservatoire as a professor in 1967, remaining for a quarter-century. Her first encounter with Messiaen came in May 1941 when he was released from a German POW camp in Silesia and could return to teach at the Conservatoire, as she later recalled: "all the students waited eagerly for this new teacher to arrive and finally he appeared with music case and badly swollen fingers, a result of his stay in the prisoner of war camp. He proceeded to the piano and produced the full score of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune and began to play all the parts. The whole class was captivated and stunned and everyone immediately fell in love with him." Musical life in occupied Paris naturally took on non-musical symbolism, as in the defiant series of 10 concerts organised by Denise Tual, the founder of the "Concerts de la Pléiades", which mixed contemporary French music, neglected older works and pieces from abroad. Tual's commission to Messiaen resulted in the Visions de l'Amen, a huge cycle of seven pieces for two pianos first performed on 9 May 1943 – by the composer and Loriod – at a private run-through chez Madame Eminger-Sivade, where their audience included the publisher Gaston Gallimard, Claire Delbos (Messiaen's wife) and the composers Arthur Honegger, André Jolivet, Francis Poulenc and Gustave Samazeuilh. The "public" premiere (it was an invited audience) took place a day later. The pattern of their lives was now set, Loriod's presence lubricating Messiaen's imagination; he once said that knowing she would be playing his music allowed him to indulge in "the greatest eccentricities". Work after work was dedicated to her: the massive Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus (1944), the Catalogue d'Oiseaux (1956–58), La fauvette des jardins (1970), Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (1985). Many of his other works had a prominent piano part, composed with Loriod in mind, among them the Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine, another Tual-Pléiades commission (1943–44), the Turangalîla-Symphonie, a commission from Serge Koussevitzky in Boston (1946–48) – its premiere, in 1949, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein, constituted her US debut – and Oiseaux exotiques (1955–56). Messiaen's devout Catholicism found reflections of the divine everywhere he looked; birds thus became "God's musicians" and, with Loriot driving him around the countryside, he notated birdsong with a passion, incorporating it into his own compositions. He observed with delight that her surname is the French word for "oriole". But Loriod did not live on a musical diet of Messiaen alone. In November 1945 she learned Bartók's Second Piano Concerto in eight days, for a performance in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with the Orchestre National conducted by Manuel Rosenthal – an illustration of the "phenomenal memory" Pierre-Laurent Aimard observed. She premiered Book 2 of Pierre Boulez's two-piano Structures with the composer at Donaueschingen in 1961. Four years later she played 22 Mozart concertos in five weeks, with the Orchestre Lamoureux under a team of conductors (Bruno Maderna, Pierre Boulez and Louis Martin). And her recordings of Jean Barraqué's Sonata and Boulez's Second – both of which she had premiered – were landmarks at a time when almost no other pianist was involved in this repertoire. In the long run she was to win no fewer than 12 Grands Prix du Disque. Messiaen, though, was the lodestar, and it was no surprise when in July 1961 – two years after the death of his first wife, Claire Delbos, who had long been institutionalised through mental illness – he and Loriod were married. They had been in love for years; their faith meant they could not act on it until his first wife had died. He then moved into Loriod's flat in Montmartre, which they gradually expanded as neighbouring properties became available. They lived simply, amid Bibles and music, with Loriod acting as musical factotum as well as executant. Perhaps her most devoted act was the preparation of the vocal score of the opera Saint-François d'Assise (1975–83), a task requiring near-unimaginable perseverance and patience. Loriod assured a Messiaen tradition not only through her own playing; his music was an important element in her teaching, too. As Paul Crossley observes: "Virtually all of us with reputations as Messiaen exponents were her pupils. I think, in many ways, we were her 'family'. Indeed, the last time I saw her she embraced me as 'mon petit Paul', as she had always called me although I was then almost 60 years old!" Pierre-Laurent Aimard experienced the same dedication: "she was very warm about her students, very much committed to them – and perhaps to some extent we were substitutes for the children she never had. And of course she looked after several generations of students. She was passionate, as a teacher, too, and precise, always indicating carefully what should be done: she was clear in her markings and her remarks, always following her own convictions. Crossley found that she "passed on all her secrets, all her magic, with a selflessness, a zeal and a good humour (there was nothing of the 'grande dame' about her) that were exemplary. Her teaching was always rigorous, technical and analytical – solid foundations on which one could build one's own interpretations." Both men remark on her unquenchable energy, which found her continuing to perform into old age. She edited Messiaen's huge Traité de rythme, de couleur et d'ornithologie, posthumously published in seven volumes. She was also a respected figure on the juries of piano competitions, not least the triennial Concours Olivier Messiaen, but also at Aspen, Bayreuth, Leeds, Munich, Paris and elsewhere. Although Loriot studied composition with Darius Milhaud until 1948, her own compositions are early and few in number. They include Grains de cendre (1946) for flute or ondes Martenot, soprano and piano, and the orchestral Pièce pour la souffrance; the only one performed in public seems to have been Trois Mélopées africaines for flute, ondes Martenot, piano and drum, heard at the Société Nationale in March 1945. But the experience must have come to her aid when, with George Benjamin, another Messiaen student, she orchestrated his incomplete final work, the Concert à quatre. A cerebral haemorrhage three years ago brought an abrupt stop to Loriod's hitherto unflagging activity, and she had been in slow decline ever since. One of her two sisters, Jeanne, the leading player of the ondes Martenot, had drowned in 2001; but the other, Jacqueline, and the local priest were with her at the time of her death, in a retirement home to the north of Paris. Martin Anderson See Yvonne Loriod and Pierre Boulez rehearsing Boulez's Structures here . Back to top Boulez & Loriod Roger Nichols The Guardian, Tuesday 18 May 2010 The French pianist Yvonne Loriod, who has died aged 86, was for half a century the inspirer and accredited interpreter of the piano music of Olivier Messiaen, and for three decades his devoted wife. She was also a dedicated champion of the piano works of Pierre Boulez, André Jolivet, Jean Barraqué and Arnold Schoenberg, and an influential teacher. Born in Houilles, on the north-western outskirts of Paris, she began to play at the age of six. Her father was a good improviser at the piano; her godmother, Madame Sivade, began to give her lessons when she was 11, and later prepared her for entry to the Paris Conservatoire. By the age of 14, Loriod had already learned the whole of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, all the Beethoven piano sonatas, the complete works of Chopin and Schumann and all the Mozart piano concertos. At the Conservatoire she studied first with Lazare-Lévy for piano and André Bloch for harmony. When the Nazis deported both these teachers in the early months of the Occupation (during which she used to give recitals of music by "Bartholdy", the Nazis never realising this was the banned Mendelssohn), her piano studies resumed under Marcel Ciampi and her harmony ones under Messiaen, who returned from his prison camp to the Conservatoire in May 1941. Messiaen was quick to recognise her extraordinary musical abilities, and in the early months of 1943 wrote his two-piano work Visions de l'Amen, in which he took creative account of her particular technical strengths, incorporating into her part, that for the first piano, "the rhythmic difficulties, the chord clusters, everything which is velocity, charm and sound quality", while reserving for himself "the principal melodic material, the thematic elements, everything which demands emotion and power". If this division of labour, together with what the composer referred to as Loriod's rôle de diamantation in the Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine, premiered two years later, suggests a traditionalist view of feminine pianism, Loriod's command of keyboard power was amply recognised in the solo cycle Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, which she premiered in the Salle Gaveau, Paris, on 26 March 1945. From then on, she was the muse not only for his piano works but for most of his orchestral ones as well – as he said in late life, "I'm married to a great pianist and I always imagine her in the midst of the orchestra" – and when, in the late 1950s, Heinrich Strobel commissioned what would become Chronochromie, he felt obliged to specify, "This time, no ondes martenot and no piano!" Of the twelve orchestral works Messiaen wrote from Turangalîla (1946-48) onwards, no fewer than nine include a part for piano; the quasi-vocal swooping of the electronic ondes martenot was often executed by Loriod's sister Jeanne. Loriod won no fewer than seven first prizes at the Conservatoire, including one for piano in the summer of 1943, and studied composition with Darius Milhaud until 1948. But by this time she had decided to become a pianist rather than a composer and started on her successful international career in that year. Although she played Mozart often, including a cycle of 22 of his piano concertos in Paris within five weeks in 1964, her reputation was made in contemporary music, much of which was almost or entirely unplayed by others - one suspects as much for technical as for aesthetic reasons. Other first performances, apart from those of Messiaen's works, included Boulez's Second Piano Sonata (1950) and Structures II at Donaueschingen with the composer at the other piano (1961), Barraqué's Piano Sonata (1957) and Jolivet's Second Piano Sonata (1959). She also made a number of pioneering recordings in this repertory. After a spell teaching at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, she was appointed a professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1967, and remained there for a quarter of a century. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Paul Crossley and Roger Muraro were among her pupils. She also gave masterclasses worldwide and was much in demand on juries, where her experience and total command of all things musical lent her a natural authority. In 1959, Messiaen's first wife, the composer and violinist Claire Delbos, died, and Loriod gave the first performance of the Catalogue d'Oiseaux. She and the composer got married two years later and had a working honeymoon in Japan, from which sprang the orchestral work Sept Haîkaï. Messiaen moved in to her flat in the rue Marcadet and, as other apartments became vacant, they knocked through walls and installed 15cm-thick soundproofing. For these last 30 years of Messiaen's life, until his death in 1992, she acted as proofreader and musical factotum - making the vocal score of his opera Saint François d'Assise took two years. Expected visitors were assured of a warm welcome and, if they were British, of tea. No doubt living with Messiaen, as with most geniuses, had its ups and downs, though the downs seem to have been very few. An unpublished letter of Darius Milhaud, written from Aspen, Colorado, says: "Les Messiaen sont ici. Comme toujours, charmants et impossibles." Given that Messiaen found the real world of timetables and electric plugs hard to crack, Loriod was called upon to be manager and travel agent as well as wife and interpreter. On his bird-listening trips she would be in charge of the tape recorder and would be expected to sleep in haystacks or barns in order to be up for the dawn chorus. Her demurrers at travelling to Bryce Canyon in Utah or New Caledonia ("wouldn't Assisi do?") went for nothing; although when it came to it, they both enjoyed these exotic trips enormously. Loriod edited a number of her husband's posthumous works, notably the Concert à Quatre. When the definitive history of 20th-century music comes to be written, she will find an honoured place, not only as an exceptional pianist, but as one who, because her technique made possible for Messiaen what he called "the greatest eccentricities", had a profound and lasting effect on that music, both pianistic and orchestral. • Yvonne Loriod, pianist, born 20 January 1924; died 17 May 2010 Tom Service. On Classical Guardian.co.uk Yvonne Loriod: musician, mentor, muse Far more than Olivier Messiaen's widow, Loriod was a superb pianist, champion of new music and a fine composer in her own right. The death of Yvonne Loriod, Olivier Messiaen's widow, brings a great dynasty of French musical life to an end, after Messiaen's death in 1992 and that of her sister, the ondes martenot virtuoso Jeanne Loriod, in 2001. Yvonne was Messiaen's second wife. He had fallen in love with her when she was a teenage student of his at the Paris Conservatoire and she was his muse for five decades (they only married in 1961 after the death of Messiaen's first wife, Claire Delbos, in a sanatorium, after many years of mental illness). Loriod's playing was the inspiration for music from the gigantic cycle Vingt regards sure l'enfant-Jésus, for solo piano, to the piano parts of orchestral pieces like the Turangalila Symphony and Des canyons aux étoiles. But Loriod's reputation was not only due to her unique relationship with her husband's music: she was one of the most powerful and persuasive of advocates of music by Pierre Boulez and Jean Barraqué, at a time when hardly any pianists anywhere were playing - or could play - modernist behemoths like Boulez's Second Sonata or the Barraqué Sonata. And together, she and Messiaen were mentors and models for musicians like composer George Benjamin (who studed with Loriod in Paris when he was 16, and remembers her as a "wonderful, exuberant, radiant" teacher) and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who they adopted as their one of their pianists du choix in the 70s, when Aimard was still in his teens. Yvonne's legacy is inevitably tied to her husband, but she was a great musician in her own right - and she was a composer too, as well as co-orchestrator of Messiaen's last orchestral work, the Concert à quatre. Yvonne Loriod dies aged 86 Pianist and widow of Olivier Messiaen remembered 18/05/2010 Yvonne Loriod, the pianist and widow of Olivier Messiaen, has died aged 86. Born 20 January 1924, she was a leading light among the post-war generation of performers and composers, quickly gaining a reputation for exceptional virtuosity, making light of the most fearsome contemporary scores, and an extraordinary memory. She gave the French premiere of Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto to great acclaim at just eight days’ notice, when the intended soloist dropped out having declared the work unplayable. Loriod championed the music of composers such as Boulez, Barraqué and Henze, but she was also lauded for her accounts of works by Mozart, Chopin, Schumann, Bach, Berg, Schoenberg, de Falla, Albéniz, Beethoven and Debussy. Loriod was a champion of the latter’s Études at a time when they were still regarded as arid, and she made an exceptional recording of Beethoven's Hammerklavier. A gifted pedagogue, she was also much in demand for the juries of piano competitions. Nonetheless, it is with the music of Messiaen that her name has become synonymous, having been the catalyst for the piano taking centre stage in numerous of his works from the 1940s onwards, either in vast cycles for the instrument, such as Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus (1944) and Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956-58), or as soloist in orchestral canvasses such as Turangalîla-Symphonie (1946-48), La Transfiguration (1965-69) and Des canyons aux étoiles... (1972-74). They met in 1941, when Messiaen was appointed Professor of Harmony at the Paris Conservatoire, where she was a student. Within a couple of years, he began writing the first of many works inspired by Loriod’s tigerish pianism, Visions de l’Amen for two pianos. He would later apologise to other pianists negotiating his music, explaining that he never had to worry about its difficulty as he knew that Loriod could play anything. Messiaen and Loriod eventually married in 1961, and her devotion to him was total. Following his death in 1992, she undertook the herculean task of preparing his seven volume Traité de rythme, de couleur et d'ornithologie (Treatise on rhythm, colour and ornithology) according to Messiaen’s plan, as well as the scores of his final works and various rediscovered pieces from much earlier in his career. In one of the short films accompanying his 2005 DVD of the Vingt Regards, Roger Muraro relates that he and Loriod had visited Messiaen’s grave ten days earlier: ‘Madame Loriod told me: “I loved him, and I love him still”’. Christopher Dingle BBC Music Magazine Yvonne Loriod, pianist and Messiaen's wife, has died Born January 20, 1924; died May 17, 2010 Wed 19th May 2010. Gramophone Magazine The opportunity to observe Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic rehearsing Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony in January 1988 with the composer present was too good to pass up. Yet time and again the 63-year-old piano soloist unwittingly stole the show by virtue of the massive chords, dazzling passagework, and long lyrical lines that seemed to shake from her arms with no effort. The sonority never splintered as it flooded Avery Fisher Hall, yet Yvonne Loriod presided with calm authority, achieving impressively fluid and colourful results with the utmost in physical economy. To watch her was to hear her, and one quickly realised why Loriod long had been Messiaen’s artistic muse. Loriod, who died aged 86 on May 17, 2010 in St Denis, met her future husband when she was his teenage student at the Paris Conservatoire (they married in 1961, two years after the death of Messiaen’s first wife Claire Delbos), and her prodigious pianism and well-grounded musicianship inspired the composer’s large-scale piano works from the Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus and Catalogue d’oiseaux cycles to the substantial piano parts in orchestral works such as the aforementioned Turangalila, Oiseaux exotiques, Trois Petits Liturgies de la Presence Divine, and Des canyons aux étoiles. In turn, her own extensive compositional training enabled her to proof her husband’s scores, prepare the piano/vocal edition of his monumental opera St Francois d’Assise, and co-orchestrate his final work Concert à quatre. Although Loriod frequently performed and recorded her husband’s music, she commanded a large, all-embracing repertoire, some of which is preserved on disc. In 1964 she played 22 Mozart Concertos over a five week period with the Lamoureux Orchestra, and gave the French premier of Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto, learning the piece with only eight days’ notice. A fervent advocate for the music of her time, Loriod premiered the second sonatas of Boulez and Jolivet and Barraqué’s Sonata in concert and on disc. She instilled this duty in her students at the Paris Conservatoire, where she taught from 1967. “I have all my young pianists playing the young composers,” Loriod told a New York Times journalist. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Paul Crossley and Roger Muraro are just a few of Loriod’s distinguished former pupils. Loriod is survived by her sister Jacqueline. Jed Distler LaMoqueur See Yvonne Loriod performing Le Moqueur polyglotte from Messiaen's Des Canyons aux etoille... Here Yvonne Loriod, Pianist and Messiaen Muse, Dies at 86 By PAUL GRIFFITHS Published: May 18, 2010 Yvonne Loriod, the French pianist whose musical exactitude and intensity inspired numerous masterpieces by her husband, the composer Olivier Messiaen, died on Monday at a retirement home in Saint-Denis, on the edge of Paris. She was 86. Enlarge This Image Ms. Loriod had been in declining health since suffering a cerebral hemorrhage three years ago and had recently broken a hip, said Roger Muraro, a former student and close friend, who confirmed her death. There may be no parallel in musical history to the performer-composer relationship that Ms. Loriod and Messiaen maintained across half a century. It gave rise not only to two immense Messiaen solo works — “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus” (“20 Glances at the Child Jesus”) and “Catalogue d’Oiseaux” (“Bird Catalog”) — but also to shorter pieces and quasi concertos, ranging in scale from the huge “Turangalîla Symphony” to “Oiseaux Exotiques” (“Exotic Birds”), for piano with a tight group of wind instruments and percussion. The presence of birds in so many of these works was no accident. For Messiaen, birdsong provided intimation of the music of heaven, unclouded by human egotism. He and Ms. Loriod would often go off in search of these natural singers, with Messiaen notating their melodies in the field and later incorporating them into his music. In Ms. Loriod he found a musician who could provide avian qualities of agility and spectacle. “I have,” he once said, “an extraordinary, marvelous, inspired interpreter whose brilliant technique and playing — in turn powerful, light, moving and colored — suit my works exactly.” It delighted him that her name was homophonous with that of a singing bird: the loriot, or golden oriole, which duly has its place in “Catalogue d’Oiseaux.” “If Messiaen did not have a Loriod, a pianist wife like her, Messiaen probably would not be Messiaen,” said Mr. Muraro, who is a specialist in the composer’s music. Ms. Loriod’s performances, in gowns of vibrant color, were exciting to watch, and even more so to hear. In her extraordinary range of timbre, achieved not only by touch but also by the split-second timing of attack and pedaling, she brought to the music the rainbow brilliance it needed. In her sense of rhythm as pulsation, especially in fast music, she gave it the energy it craved. To some extent those qualities were written into the music under her influence. Messiaen became, from the time he met her, a more assertive and more public composer, and he paid far more attention to the piano. Yvonne Loriod was born in Houilles, a town six miles northwest of Paris, on Jan. 20, 1924. She had piano lessons from childhood, as did her sister Jeanne, four and a half years younger. Jeanne Loriod, who died in 2001, became a leading exponent of the electronic instrument the ondes martenot. Yvonne Loriod’s first teacher, Madame Sivade, who was also her godmother, had Yvonne giving monthly recitals as a young girl. By 14 she knew the whole of Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” and all 32 Beethoven sonatas. She went on to study at the Paris Conservatoire, where she met Messiaen when he arrived in 1942 to take a class in harmony. Along with Pierre Boulez and other classmates, she became a member of Messiaen’s intimate group, with whom he would discuss his music, modern music generally and the music of other continents. His awareness of Ms. Loriod’s pianistic prowess came soon: in 1943 he wrote “Visions de l’Amen” for the two of them to play on two pianos. That was followed by “Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine” (“Three Little Liturgies of the Divine Presence,” 1943-44), for women’s choir and small orchestra with solo piano, and “Vingt Regards” (1944). “Visions” was presented by Messiaen and Ms. Loriod in May 1943, when Paris was still occupied; the two other works were performed in early 1945. After this triptych of sacred concert works, Messiaen produced, from 1945 to 1949, what he called his Tristan Trilogy, on the theme of cosmic love. It was a glorious outburst of love music, and though Ms. Loriod performed in only two of the pieces — the song cycle “Harawi,” evoking Peru, and “Turangalîla” — it seems clear she inspired all three. (The third piece was “Cinq Rechants,” or “Five Refrains,” for small chorus.) Ms. Loriod had become the focus for musical feelings that the composer had directed toward his first wife, Claire Delbos, in the 1930s but who by the 1940s was suffering a long physical decline. In the 1950s, all the music Messiaen wrote for Ms. Loriod was bird-inspired: the concerto “Réveil des Oiseaux” (“Awakening of the Birds”), “Oiseaux Exotiques” and the “Catalogue.” Ms. Delbos died in 1959, and two years later Ms. Loriod and Messiaen were married. A tour of Japan was their honeymoon, remembered by Messiaen in his “Sept Haïkaï” (“Seven Haiku”), for piano and small orchestra. (Ms. Loriod also traced her expertise in Japanese cuisine to that trip.) In 1962, Ms. Loriod performed all the Mozart concertos at the Conservatoire, whose faculty she joined in 1967. From this point on she concentrated on her pupils — among them Michel Béroff, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Mr. Muraro — and her husband. Ms. Loriod and Messiaen traveled the world together and welcomed students to their apartment in Paris. Messiaen’s flow of music for her continued, from big solo parts in the concert-length concerto “Des Canyons aux Étoiles ...” (“From the Canyons to the Stars,” 1971-75) to a part in the unfinished “Concert à Quatre” (“Concerto for Four”). Ms. Loriod recorded everything her husband wrote for her, in many cases more than once, and these recordings will remain an essential part of the Messiaen legacy. Invaluable, too, was the work she did after his death, in 1992, in editing his writings, not least his 4,000-page treatise on rhythm. Ms. Loriod is survived by a sister, Jacqueline, and a stepson, Pascal Messiaen. Ms. Loriod moved to the Saint-Denis retirement home, in a leafy area, after her cerebral hemorrhage three years ago. There she could hear birds sing, Mr. Muraro said. In recent months, however, she had remained shut inside. “It’s spring and the birds are just beginning to sing now,” he said, but Ms. Loriod did not get to hear them. 9. 10. CLASSICAL ICONACLAST WEDNESDAY, 19 MAY 2010 Yvonne Loriod - musician and muse Yvonne Loriod has passed away, aged 86. All the newspaper obits are out, standard pieces, written long ago, some cobbled together from material on Olivier Messiaen. He was the love of her life and centre of her existence. But there was much more to "Mrs Loriod" as Pierre-Laurent Aimard charmingly calls her. She deserves a tribute in her own right. Not so easy, because she was self-effacing, letting Messiaen take the limelight, but she was formidably talented. She was an extremely good pianist, playing at a high level, certainly not just Messiaen. She came to Paris to learn composition, and attracted the eye of Nadine Boulanger. Boulanger had a serious animus against Messiaen, so when Loriod took up with Messiaen she was immediately dropped from Boulanger circles. Not that Loriod cared. Messiaen's empathic, open-minded approach to music was much more Loriod's thing, anyway, apart from the fact she fell in love. Because Messiaen was such a devout Catholic, marriage was out of the question, as his first wife was hospitalized for what seems to have been some kind of mental problem. Loriod and Messiaen didn't actually live together but shared three floors of the same building.. One floor his, one floor hers and the one in the middle was teaching space. She taught too, becoming a professor at an early age. Yvonne and her sister Jeanne were both pianists, both learning the Ondes Martenot and performing round the world. (Both also continued playing piano.) In the late 1990's they both came to London to play: two tiny elderly ladies exuding charm. Sadly Jeanne died soon after. Yvonne lived on, but was too frail to come to London in 2008 to celebrate Messiaen's centenary (curated by Aimard, and bigger than the Paris commemorations). Loriod and Messiaen were so much of a unit that it's arguable he would not have achieved quite as much as he did without her presence. Her name means "Oriole", so when the song of an oriole appears in his music, there's an extra level of meaning. Loriod is a presence in most of his music, even indirectly. He composed entirely on his own, bringing out new works only near completion, but she was musician enough herself to comment intelligently. Plenty can, and has, and will be written about Loriod's influence on Messiaen's art, but she contributed in simple, practical ways, too. She knitted the enormous, multi-coloured scarf he wears in one of the most famous photographs. It's too huge and too extrovert to be something you'd find in a shop. He knew what it meant, so he wears it with a huge grin. She was the "practical one" who made arrangements, fixed the tape recorders and apparently drove a car. She was also the emollient one, who kept up friendships such as with Boulez with whom she was close (same age). She mothered Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the son she never had, and adored his children. She'll be remembered of course as Messiaen's life partner and muse, but she was someone very special herself. Posted by Doundou Tchil

Some examples of Messiaen recordings and performances. MultiMedia AUDIO and VIDEO FILES ALL OF THE BELOW AUDIO/VIDEO FILES ARE © copyright of the holder. NOTE: All audio and video files available on this site are for personal use only. NO REPOSTING OF ANY COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IS PERMITTED WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER. My Morning with Messiaen - Les oiseaux et les sources (Messe de la Pentecôte) Organist Timothy Hagy has made a video recording of Les oiseaux et les sources (Messe de la Pentecôte) with an introduction describing meeting Messiaen on Easter of 1982, that contains several old photos. © Timothy Hagy © Timothy Hagy Messiaen's Pentecost Mass is celebrating its 75th Anniversary. It was premiered at High Mass at L'Église de la SainteTrinité in Paris on Pentecost Sunday 1950. The final movement depicts the Holy Spirit in the form of a violent wind descending from heaven. Tornadoes dip down, while a choir of larks chirps above an accompaniment of drones. Timothy Hagy performs The Wind of the Spirit - Le vent de l'esprit (Messe de la Pentecôte) Rich Kass interprets the song of the Skylark on the Drum Set. Rich Kass is a freelance drummer known for his highly individual and original approach to drumming and the drum set. He has developed a melodic sensibility coupled with rhythmic virtuosity and tonal colour creating great subtlety of expression on the drum set. Here is Messiaen : Petites esquisses d'oiseaux : VI L'alouette des champs The Skylark · Yvonne Loriod, piano. There is much rhythmic similarity here especially in the virtuosic two-part writing, and repeated short cells. ‘Skylark’ This piece is my attempt to pay homage to the Eurasian Skylark - a bird whose song has inspired me on many country walks in recent years. For this performance I have transcribed a field recording of a skylark singing and have tried to use my drumset as a kind of sonic mirror - reflecting and refracting some new colours whilst striving to maintain the integrity of the original song. I haven’t edited the skylark song at all, and am attempting to match its phrasing verbatim. I completed the piece in springtime this year(2024), and premiered it at Kings Place, London as part of a concert with Trio HLK and Evelyn Glennie. This is the 6th installment in a series of videos I have made under the name ‘Drum Interpretations’. In each I take musical works composed for or on other instruments, and perform them on the drumset. The complete series can be found here In the coming weeks I will release 3 more videos which relate to Skylark bird song. 1 is a drums-only version of the composition (without the bird accompanying) and there are also 2 improvisations based on the source material. All videos will be published on my YouTube channel : Thank you for reading and listening. Rich Eurasian Skylark RichKass Matthew Schellhorn's special film for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2021 For the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2021 (29 to 31 January), Matthew Schellhorn produced a special film in collaboration with young artists from across the country. Olivier Messiaen (1908–92) wrote numerous pieces inspired by birdsong. “Le Rouge-gorge ” (Robin) comes from a collection written in 1985 called “Petites esquisses d’oiseaux ” (Small Bird Sketches) and apart from the Robin features the Blackbird, the Song Thrush and the Skylark. The work was dedicated to the composer’s wife, Yvonne Loriod , with whom Matthew studied in Paris. Special thanks go to the talented pupils of Myatt Garden Primary School for taking part! ©Michel Gueritte Musicologist Jerzy Stankiewicz speaks at the inauguration of the rue Olivier Messiaen in the town of Toul, France. Rodrigo De la Prida introduces Messiaen's Modes for Electric Guitar Find out more here . There were a few instruments that Messiaen never included in his compositions (saxophone, harp, timpani after the 1930's and guitar are among these) - Rodrigo De la Prida 's work opens up the sound world of Messiaen's modes for guitarists with excellent and engaging examples that range from chord and scale work to improvisation. Rodrigo says: 'With already 4 years of intense work, the 7 volumes of the book series about the scales of Olivier Messiaen and their applications on any musical genre, are now available. Just digital for now. More than 500 pages with 351 licks, guitar studies, arpeggios, atonal chords, triads and tetrads, and examples. This material represents a deep dive into the rich musical universe of the french composer'. 'In this book series for guitar, Rodrigo tackles the exhaustive task of diving into the musical language of Olivier Messiaen, but from an unprejudiced view, where the different types of music coexist. Messiaen Modes for Electric Guitar aims to be a tool to expand the harmonic and melodic universe of the popular musician, but also a means to the study and deepening of modern language in the contemporary-classical music student as well'. M2BT-DEMO Rodrigo De la Prida 00:00 / 01:03 Here is a short demo of a backing track that comes with the book. © Rodrigo De la Prida During the 1973 English Bach Festival in London, Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod gave a recital at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Messiaen began by apologising for the way they were dressed. The taxi had gone off with all their luggage. He read the poetic preface to the piano work written three years earlier. Mme Messiaen then performed "La Fauvette des Jardins " @ 7' 40" Didier Didier Wampas and Bikini Machine Olivier Messiaen Il voyait des couleurs Que l'on ne voit pas Et croyait en un Dieu Auquel on ne croit plus Olivier Messiaen Il faisait des mélodies Que l'on n'entend pas Et chanter des oiseaux Que l'on ne connaît plus Olivier Messiaen Oui mais grâce à lui J'ai découvert des mondes Des regards plein d'amours Des canyons aux étoiles Et un Quatuor Pour la fin des temps Composé au stalag Éclairs sur l'au-delà Saint François d'Assise Un soir à l'opéra Olivier Messiaen Oui mais grâce à lui J'ai découvert des mondes Des regards plein d'amours Des canyons aux étoiles Oui mais grâce à lui J'ai découvert des mondes Des catalogues d'oiseaux Des canyons aux étoiles Oui mais grâce à lui J'ai découvert des mondes Et le Regard du père Des canyons aux étoiles ©Didier Wampas He saw colors That we don't see And believed in a God In which we no longer believe Olivier Messiaen He made melodies That we don't hear And sing of the birds That we no longer know Olivier Messiaen Yes but thanks to him I discovered worlds Gazes full of love Des canyons aux étoiles And a Quatuor Pour la fin des temps Composed in a Stalag Éclairs sur l'au-delà Saint François d’Assisi An evening at the opera Olivier Messiaen Yes but thanks to him I discovered worlds Gazes full of love Des canyons aux étoiles Yes but thanks to him I discovered worlds Catalogue d’oiseaux Des canyons aux étoiles Yes but thanks to him I discovered worlds And the Regard du père Des canyons aux étoiles Historic Recordings of Messiaen by Messiaen . Transfer from original 78rpm records recorded in 1949 of Visions de l'Amen with Yvonne Loriod and recording of OM playing his Quatre Etudes 1951. FMR Records FMRCD 120-L0403. Order via the Contact form . 00:00 / 00:26 00:00 / 00:54 00:00 / 00:54 VINGT REGARDS SUR L'ENFANT JESUS Louise Bessette Atma ACD22219/20 LE COURLIS CENDRE / LE MERLE NOIR / Mozart / Levinas / Gougeon / Mâche Louise Bessette RCI 650 Claude-Samuel Levine would like to share his playing of movements from the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps : using VSTi Synful Orchestra and VSTi Pianoteq, humanly played in Cubase. Liturgie de Cristal Vocalise pour l'ange qui annonce la fin du temps Abyme des Oiseaux Intermède CD and downloads of the complete Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps now available direct from Claude-Samuel here . 00:00 / 02:38 After a period of two years work, Claude-Samuel Lévine has produced a version of TurangalilaSymphonie created entirely by computer software instruments and MIDI (except for 'live' Ondes Martenot played on the Ondea). This is a detailed interpretation that in no way proposes to 'replace' real musicians, but can provide an insight into Messiaen's microscopic detail in the work. Further commentaries can be found on Claude-Samuel's web site as well as audio and visual clips. The CD and DVD are also available to purchase here . Click here to see and hear Thomas Bloch and Jean-François Zygel perform 4th Feuillet Inedits. Click here to see and hear Willem Tanke perform Messiaen's organ works. ©Willem Tanke Nans Bart Variations sur un thème de Messiaen ((Thème du Final - 10ème Mvt. de la Turangalila-Symphonie)) for Percussion Ensemble here © Copyright protected ©Thomas Bloch

Personal audio and visual archive of Messiaen recordings. Resources A selection of my personal audio & visual Resource Archive Unlike several years ago, Messiaens' music is now well represented in the commercial audio market. Listed below is my own personal collection some of which may be of interest and could be made available on a strictly private basis for study or research. A comprehensive discography can be found in 'The Messiaen Companion ' edited by Peter Hill and compiled by Dr. Christopher Dingle. Res1 View More Back to top

Please help us crowdfund new project: Messiaen Final Messiaen Filming Completed To complete the documentary, we did one final day of filming in London at a very special location. Felix Aprahamian’s writing will be well known to you. He was a noted critic and wrote the notes for many key concerts and recordings. He was also a concert promoter and arranged for the first English performance of Messiaen’s La Nativité in 1936, performed by Messiaen himself in London. From that time onwards Messiaen and Aprahamian were friends, and Messiaen often visited Aprahamian at his house in Muswell Hill, north London. Amazingly, this house is still very much how it was when Aprahamian lived there, until his death in 2005. The house is now run by a charity for blind organists. It is a fine and spacious Victorian house filled with thousands of books and scores, as well as two organs, several grand pianos, a harmonium, a pedal clavichord, and a harpsichord. More importantly, the house is more or less exactly the same as it was when Messiaen visited it many times. Thanks to the kindness of David Aprahamian Liddle, pictured above with Messiaen and Jennifer Bate, we were able to film for a day in this wonderful treasure trove. Many of you will know David's performances since his time as assisting organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge and through his many recitals, Using what may well be the same piano that Yvonne Loriod gave a famous private performance of Boulez, our scholar Chris Dingle was able to demonstrate how Messiaen’s personal life influences his compositional life. Using one of the organs, formerly owned by André Marchal, himself a performer of Messiaen’s music, our performer and presenter Tom Bell was able to demonstrate many aspects of Messiaen’s use of rhythm as well as some of the modes or scales that he used in his music. David Aprahamian Liddle spoke beautifully on camera about his first-hand recollections of Messiaen’s visits to Muswell Hill, and what it was like to meet him. We were also able to film various presentations to camera that bind the sections of the film together. All in all, it was a highly successful day. The documentary itself is taking its final form – it may change a little but it is currently a major piece of work – four 50-minute documentary films, plus of course more than three hours of awesome musical performances. Please support this work. Please help us by buying one of the 200 DVDs we need to sell to raise the money we need! Support from recognised subscribers, screeners and patrons is particularly appreciated – please support us here! Fugue State Films is run by film-maker Will Fraser. Founded in 2007, for ten years it was a partnership between Will and Simon Still, during which time they established themselves as one of the leading makers of films about music such as The Genius of Cavaillé-Coll and Maximum Reger . Their goal is to make films of the highest quality about the best classical music, films that both summarise present attitudes while seeking new views and pushing new opinions. Central to this goal is the creation of an ongoing set of wonderful films to promote the organ and the beautiful music of its repertoire, the intricate details and magnificent totality of the instrument itself, and the work of the celebrated artists who play it. We want to make a lot of films about the tremendous French tradition of organ music – we’ve made films about Cavaillé-Coll, Franck, Widor and Vierne, but there is much more to cover – particularly the classical school of the Ancien Regime – Couperin, de Grigny etc, and of course the organists, composers and/or improvisers who followed Widor in the 20th century – Dupré, Duruflé, Litaize, Langlais, Alain, Cochereau, Guillou, Grunenwald, Hakim, Florentz and many more. There’s also of course the 21st century! But one name stands out, a composer of organ music who both dominates the instrument but also the general musical landscape of the 20th century: Olivier Messiaen . Download new proposal here. Please prebuy this multi-disc boxset from Fugue State Films . Tom Bell will perform several of Messiaen’s great cycles of organ music: La Nativité, Messe de la Pentecôte , as well as the magisterial Livre du Saint-Sacrement in its entirety, plus other movements. These will be filmed and recorded at Blackburn Cathedral , home of the best organ for playing Messiaen’s organ music in the UK. Thomas Lacôte will explore Messiaen’s improvisation, and Loïc Mallié and Carolyn Shuster-Fournier will discuss Messiaen’s music. The French organists will be filmed at Messiaen’s church, La Trinité in Paris, where the composer was organiste titulaire for 60 years. In an accompanying documentary biographer and scholar Christopher Dingle will explore Messiaen’s life and compositional styles and development in relation to his organ music. We will record with Tom Bell . Tom is one of the directors of the Royal College of Organists and is known for his concerts and classes around the UK and in Singapore, Australia and the USA. He is an avid proponent of 20th and 21st century music, from Schoenberg’s Variations on a Recitative through the recent Orgelbuchlein Project to Jean Guillou’s nine-organ epic, La Révolte des Orgues. An expert on Messiaen, not only will Tom perform, but he will also co-present a documentary with leading Messiaen-scholar Christopher Dingle . Tom Bell is one of the regional directors of the Royal College of Organists, and has produced a set of 10 films for the RCO about Messiaen, as a sort of vlog - you can see Tom discussing Messiaen here Tom Bell himself says: ‘Messiaen's Livre du Saint-Sacrement (LSS) is the ultimate and longest organ piece by one of greatest composers of the 20th century. It is an ideal way to discover the sound world of Messiaen, as it is an almost comprehensive account of the major styles he used within his compositions, such as innovative use of rhythm, birdsong, richly colourful harmony and the influence of world music. ‘We shall also include Le Banquet Céleste and the Messe de la Pentecôte in this DVD for as full an account as possible of Messiaen’s style. ‘Therefore this one boxset shall showcase Messiaen's full range as a composer of organ music. Also, the LSS incorporates ideas present for the first time that Messiaen would explore in the last decade of his life, for instance a more ethereal sense of harmony that we find in his late piano works.’ Tom's co-presenter is Professor Christopher Dingle, author of The Life of Messiaen and Messiaen’s Final Works. Chris is one of the most authoritative Messiaen scholars in the world. Together they will explore the history, style and language of the piece. The DVD/CD boxset we produce shall be therefore be both a spotlight on a particular work and an overall summation of Messiaen’s work as a composer!

This webpage enables detailed comparison of five of Messiaen's birdsongs with the actual birdsongs he used as models. The spectrograms, the 78 rpm records from which he derived the North American birdsongs in Oiseaux exotiques, and Messiaen's aesethetic of imitation are discussed by Robert Fallon Birdsong in Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques compared with the ornithological recordings he transcribed. This webpage enables detailed comparison of five of Messiaen's birdsongs with the actual birdsongs he used as models. The spectrograms, the 78 rpm records from which he derived the North American birdsongs in Oiseaux exotiques, and Messiaen's aesethetic of imitation are discussed in Robert Fallon, "The Record of Realism in Messiaen's Bird Style," in OLIVIER MESSIAEN: Music, Art and Literature . ed. Christopher Dingle & Nigel Simeone (Ashgate, 2007). Prairie chicken [Tétras cupidon des prairies] Wood thrush [Grive des bois] Lazuli bunting [Pape indigo ou Ministre] Baltimore oriole [Troupiale de Baltimore] Cardinal [Cardinal rouge de Virginie] Click on the left play button to listen to the actual bird and the right play button to hear Messiaen's bird. a) Prairie chicken Download Prairie chicken as pdf 00:00 / 00:09 b) Wood thrush Download Wood thrush as pdf 00:00 / 00:06 c) Lazuli bunting Download Lazuli bunting as pdf 00:00 / 00:06 d) Baltimore oriole Download Baltimore oriole as pdf 00:00 / 00:06 e) Cardinal Download Cardinal as pdf 00:00 / 00:13 KEY • The spectograms are plotted with frequency (Hz) over time (sec.). • The numbers below the spectograms indicate the frequencies where the arrows point. • Arrows align the spectogram with the transcription; they do not indicate matching pitches. • The frequencies were determined with care for the signal’s audibility, a combination of duration and intensity. • The frequencies are accompanied by their corresponding letter names of musical pitches. • A “+” after the letter name indicates the frequency is microtonally higher than the indicated pitch: “D#+” means a sharp D#. • A “–” after the letter name indicates the frequency is microtonally lower than the indicated pitch: “G#–” means a flat G#. • The indicated frequencies depend on the turntable speed used in the digital transfer, which may not precisely duplicate the speed at which Messiaen heard the recordings. The preponderance of matched tones suggests the two speeds are very similar. Bird images by John James Audubon. Recorded excerpts from Olivier Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques are taken from a live performance by the San Francisco Conservatory's New Music Ensemble, conducted by Nicole Paiement, with Jacqueline Chew as piano soloist. The author thanks the performers and the Conservatory for their kind permission to use the excerpts. ©Robert Fallon More examples of Messiaen's birds. Click to download pdfs (in French) Alouette des champs. pdf Fauvette à tête noire. pdf Grive musicienne pdf Merle noir. pdf Mésange charbonnière. pdf Pic épeiche. pdf Pinson des arbres. pdf Rossignol philomèle. pdf Rouge-gorge. pdf Troglodyte mignon. pdf

List of works composed by Olivier Messiaen List of Works Messiaen wrote a vast amount of music including many test and sight reading pieces when he was teaching at the Ecole Normale de Musique during the 1930s and many early works were either discarded or considered as 'mere student exercises and not worth publishing'; so some of these works and others that are unpublished to date appear in blue . 1917 La dame de Shalott - Piano 1921 Deux ballades de Villon I. Épître à ses amis II.Ballade des pendus - Voice & Piano Ballade des pendus (poeme by François Villon) 1925 La tristesse d'un grand ciel blanc - Piano 1926 Fugue - (sur un sujet de Henri Rabaud) Orchestral 1927 Esquisse modale - Organ 1927 Pièce pour orgue sur un thème de Laparra - Organ 1927 Adagio - Organ, Violin and Cello 1926/27 Andantino (String Quartet) 1928 Fugue en ré mineur (Orchestra) 1928 L'hôte aimable des âmes - Organ 1928 La banquet eucharistique - Orchestral 1st and only performance on 22-1-1930 in an event called 'Exercice des éleves' at the Paris Conservatoire cond. by Henri Rabaud. 1928 Le banquet céleste - Organ (Leduc) The first edition of 1934 was written in 3/4 metre with no metronome mark. Messiaen revised this in 1960 with a metre of 3/2 and MM of quaver = 52. 1928 Variations écossaises - Organ 1928 Jésus (Poème symphonique) c.1929 Prélude en trio sur un thème de Haydn - Organ 1928-29 Préludes - Piano (Durand)1st private performance 28-1-1930 at Editions Durand by Messiaen 1st public performance 15-6-1937 by Bernadette Alexandre-Georges at Ecole Normale de Musique Paris 1930 Sainte-Bohème (Extrait des Odes funambulesques)-a setting for chorus and orchestra of a text by Théodore de Banville. 1930 Fugue pour le Concours de Rome (sur un sujet de Georges Hüe) 1930 La Mer pour le Concours de Rome (a cantata, parts of which were later used in Trois Petites Liturgies.) 1930 Diptyque - Organ (Durand) 1st public performance 20-2-1930 Les Amis de l'Orgue, Eglise de la Trinite, Messiaen 1930 La mort du nombre - Vocal/Chamber - sop, ten, violin, piano (Durand) 1st public performance 1931 Societe Musicale Independante, Ecole Normale de Musique Paris. Georgette Mathieu (S), Jean Planel (T) Monsieur Blareau (vl) Messiaen (pn) 1930 Les offrandes oubliées - Orchestral - 3.3.3.3;4.3.3.1;timp,perc,strings (Durand) 1st public performance 19-2-1930 Theatre des Champs Elysees, Les Concerts Straram dir. Walter Straram 1930 Les offrandes Oubliées - Piano version (Durand) LOWTop 1930/35 Offrande au Saint Sacrement - Organ (Leduc) 1929/30 Simple chant d'une âme - Orchestral 1930 Trois mélodies - Voice & Piano (Durand) 1st public performance 1930 Societe national de musique, Louise Matha and Messiaen 1931 Le Tombeau resplendissant - Orchestra - 3.3(1 cor ang).3(1clB).3-4.3.3.1-1perc - strings(Durand) 1st public performance 12-2-1933 Salle Pleyel Paris dir Monteux c.1931 Fugue pour le Concours de Rome 1931 L'Ensorceleuse Cantate- sop, ten, bass and piano (or orchestra) Played through for the judges at the Prix de Rome competion 4 July 1931 1931 La Jeunesse des vieux - a short choral setting of a poem by Catulle Mendés 1932 Apparition de l'église éternelle- Organ (Lemoine) 1932 Fantaisie Burlesque - Piano (Durand)1st public performance 8-2-1933 by Robert Casadesus Concerts de la Societe Musicale Independante, Ecole Normale de Musique 1932 Hymne au Saint Sacrament - Orchestral - 3.3.3.3;4.3.3.0,timp.perc,strings (Bro) 1st public performance 23-3-1933 cond. Walther Straram Théatre Champs-Élysées 1932 Thème et variations - Chamber - violin & piano (Leduc) 1st public performance 22-11-1932 at Cercle Musical de Paris Claire Delbos and Messiaen 1932-33 L'Ascension - Orchestral - 3.3.3.3;4.3.3.1,timp,perc;16.16.14.12.10 (Leduc) 1st public performance 9-2-1935 at Salle Rameau, Concerts Siohan cond Robert Siohan 1933 Fantasie- Chamber - violin & piano (Durand 2007) First known performance:Schola Cantorum, paris 18 - 3 - 1935 (Messiaen and Delbos). Rediscovered in 2007 and published. 1933 Mass - Vocal - 8 sopranos 4 violins 1933-34 L'Ascension - Organ (Leduc) 1st public performance 29-1-1935 at saint-Antoine-des-Quinze-Vingts by Messiaen 1934 5 Leçons de Solfege a chanter - treble clef & piano accom. (Lemoine) 1934 Morceau de Lecture à vue for Piano 1935 La Nativité du Seigneur - Organ (Leduc) 1st complete public performance 27-2-1936 concert by Les Amis de l'Orgue at Trinité by Daniel Lesur mvt 1-3, Jean Langlais mvts4-6 and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald mvts7-9 1935 Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas - Piano (Durand) 1st public performance by Joaquin Nin-Culmell 25-4-1936 Ecole Normale de Musique Paris 1935 Vocalise - Voice & piano (Leduc) 1st public performance 18-5-1936 by Hennriette Quéru-Bedel and Messiaen 1936 Poèmes pour Mi - Vocal - sop & piano (Durand) 1st public performance 28-4-1937 Les Concerts de la Spirale, Marcelle Bunlet (s) Messiaen (pno) 1937 O sacrum convivium - Vocal SATB or sop & organ (Durand) 1st public performance 17-2-1938 Les Amis de l'Orgue at Trinité 1937 Poèmes pour Mi - Sop & Orchestra - 3.3.2.3;4.3.3.1;3 perc;strings (Durand) 1937 Fêtes des Belles Eaux - 6 Ondes Martenots (Leduc) 1st public performance 25-7-1937 at Fete de la lumiere Paris Fêtes des Belles Eaux - arr. Klaus Simon for wind sextet and celeste (or piano) (Leduc) 1938 Chants de terre et de ciel - Vocal sop & piano (Durand) 1st public performance 23-1-1939 Les Concerts du Triton, Ecole Normale de Musique, Paris. Marcelle Bunlet (s) Messiaen (pno) 1938 Deux monodies en quarts de ton - Ondes Martenot. Unpublished, the Deux Monodies in ¼ tones for Ondes Martenot were written when he was a professor at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. 1939 Les corps glorieux - Organ (Leduc) 1st private performance 22-7-1941 at Trinité 1st public performance 15-11-1943 at Trinité by Messiaen 1939 Vie pour Dieu des Ressuscités - Organ. A transcription of L'eau Movement 4 of Fêtes des Belles Eaux and later movement 5 of Quatuor pour la fin du temps. It is believed that Messiaen was to have used it as the second movement of Les corps glorieux but later deleted it. The first performance after its discovery was March 17th 2019 by Thomas Lacôte at La Trinité in Paris. 1940-41 Quatuor pour la fin du temps - Chamber - violin,clarinet,cello,piano (Durand)1st public performance during captivity 15-1-1941 in Stalag VIIIA, Gorlitz by Jean Le Boulaire, Henri Akoka, Etienne Pasquier and Messiaen. Then 24-6-1941 by Jean Pasquier, Andre Vacellier, Etienne Pasquier and Messiaen at Theatre des Mathurins, Paris (There is an arrangement of Louange a l'eternite de Jesus by Clytus Gottwald for 19 voices) 1941 Choeurs pour une Jeanne d'Arc I. Te Deum II.Impropères pour grand chœur et petit chœur mixtes, a cappella The choruses were written for Portique pour une fille de France a pageant by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Barbier. 1942 Musique de scène pour un Oedipe [Dieu est innocent]- Electronic (1 Ondes Martenot) 1943 Rondeau - Piano (Leduc) 1943 Visions de l'Amen - 2 Pianos (Durand)1st public performance by Yvonne Loriod and Messiaen at Galerie Charpentier, Les Concerts se la Pleiade Paris 10-5-1943 1943-44 Trois Petites liturgies de la présence divine - Vocal/Orchestral - 36 womens voices,piano solo, ondes martenot solo, celesta, vibraphone, 3 perc; 8.8.6.6.4 (Durand) 1st public performance 21-4-1945 Les concerts de la Pleiade, Salle du Conservatoire, Y Loriod, G Martenot Desormiere dir. 1944 Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus - Piano (Durand) 1st public performance by Yvonne Loriod 26-3-1945 Salle Gaveau, Paris 1945 Harawi - Vocal - sop & piano (Leduc) 1st private performance 26-6-1946 at Étienne de Beaumont's house, Paris by Marcelle Bunlet and Messiaen 1st public performance 27-6-1946 at Galerie Georges Giroux, Brussels. 1945 Piéce , for oboe and piano 1945 Tristan et Yseult - Théme d'Amour - Organ 1945 Chant des déportés - Vocal & Orchestra - 3.2.3.3;4.3.3.1;3 perc, piano, glock, strings (in large numbers) 1st public performance 2-11- 1945 at Palais de Chaillot cond Manuel Rosenthal 1946-48 Turangalîla-Symphonie - Orchestral 3.3.3.3;4.5.3.1; piano solo, ondes martenot solo; glock, celeste, vibraphone, 5perc; 16.16.14.12.10 (Durand) 1st public performance 2-12-1949 Symphony Hall Boston USA Y.Loriod, G Martenot dir. Bernstein 1948 Cinq Réchants - Vocal 3S 3A 3T 3B (Salabert) 1st public performance 1949 Salle Erard Paris. Ensemble vocal Marcel Couraud dir. 1949 Cantéyodjyâ - Piano (UE) 1st public performance 23-2-1954 at Petit Théatre Marigny by Yvonne Loriod 1949-50 Messe de la Pentecôte - Organ (Leduc) 1st incomplete public performance 13-5-1951 at Trinité by Messiaen 1949-50 Quatre Études de rythme - Piano (Durand) 1st public performance by Messiaen, 6-11-1950 Alliance Française Tunis 1951 Livre d'orgue - Organ (Leduc) 1st public performance (France) March 1955 by Messiaen 1952 Le merle noir - Chamber - flute & piano (Leduc) 1952 Timbres-durées - Electronic/Musique Concrete 1953 Chant donneé {Leçon d'harmonie:Hommage à Jean Gallon} unspecified instrumentation, written in open score SATB. c.1953 Réveil des oiseaux - Orchestral - 4.3.4.3;2.2.0.0; Piano solo, celeste, xylo, glock, 2 perc; 8.8.8.8.6 (Durand) 1st public performance 11-10-1953 Donaueschingen Festival Germany. Loriod pno. Rosbaud dir. 1955-56 Oiseaux exotiques - Orchestral - 2.1.3.1;2.1.0.0; piano solo, glock, xylo, 5 perc (UE) 1st public performance 10-3-1956 at Petit Théatre Marignt, Paris cond Rudolf Albert, Y.loriod pno. 1956-58 Catalogue d'oiseaux - Piano (Leduc) 1st public performance 15-4-1959 at Salle Gaveau by Y. Loriod 1959 Conférence de Bruxelles - Text (Leduc) 1959-60 Chronochromie - Orchestral - 4.3.4.3;4.4.3.1; glock, xylo, marimba, 3 perc; 16.16.14.12.10 (Leduc) 1st public performance 16-10-1960 at Donaueschingen cond. Hans Rosbaud 1960 Verset pour la Fête de la Dédicace - Organ (Leduc) Composed as a test piece for the Paris Conservatoire. 1961 La Fauvette Passerinette - Piano (performing realization by Peter Hill) 1962 Sept haïkaï - Orchestral - 2.3.4.2;0.1.1.0; piano solo, xylo, marimba, 4 perc; 8.0.0.0.0 (Leduc) 1st public performance 30-10-1963 at Odéon Theatre de France cond P.Boulez, Y.Loriod pno. Orch du Domaine Musical. 1963 Couleurs de la Cité Céleste - Orchestral - 0.0.3.0;2.4.4.0; piano solo, xylo, xylorim,, marimba, 3 perc. (Leduc) 1st public performance 17-10-1964 at Donaueschingen, orch. Domaine Musical cond. Pierre Boulez, Y.Loriod pno. 1963 Monodie - for Organ (Leduc) 1964 Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum - Orchestral - 5.4.5.4;6.4.4.2;6 perc. (Leduc) 1st public performance 7-5-1965 at Saint Chapelle cond. Serge Baudo 1964 Prélude for Piano - ed. Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen (Durand) 1st public performance by Yvonne Loriod 8-12-2000 Conservatoire national superieur de musique de Paris 1965-69 La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus - Vocal/Orchestral - Choir: s.s.m-s.a.t.t.bar.b.b (10 voices per part). Orch: piano solo, cello solo, flute solo, clarinet solo, xylorimba solo, vibraphone solo, marimba solo; 5.4.5.4;6.4.4.2;6 perc; 16.16.14.12.12. (Leduc) 1st public performance 7-6-1969 at Coliseu Lisbon cond. Serge Baudo 1969 Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité - Organ (Leduc) 1st private performance 8-11-1971 by Messiaen at Trinité. 1st public performance 20-3-1972 at Basillica of the Immaculate Conception, Washington USA by Messiaen 1970 La fauvette des jardins - Piano (Leduc) 1971 Le tombeau de Jean-Pierre Guezec - Horn solo 1971-74 Des Canyons aux étoiles - Orchestral - 4.3.4.3;3.3.3.0; piano solo, horn solo, glock, xylorim, 5 perc; 6.0.3.3.1 (Leduc) 1st public performance 20-11-1974 at Alice Tully Hall New York USA by Musica Aeterna Orch cond, Fredric Waldman, Y.Loriod pno. 1975-83 Saint-François d'Assise - Opera - Choir: s.s.m-s.a.t.t.bar.b.b (15 voices per part). Orch: 7.4.8.4;6.4.3.3; xylo, xylorimba, vibraphone, marimba, glock, 5 perc; 3 ondes martenot; 16.16.14.12.10. (Leduc) 1st public performance 28-11-1983 at Paris Opera cond. Seiji Ozawa 1977 Conférence de Notre - Dame - Text (Leduc) 1977 Improvisations (for L'Âme en bourgeon - texts by Cécile Sauvage) 1982 Sigle - a short piece for unaccompanied flute which has been published for the first time as an illustration in the French edition (Paris, Fayard, 2008) of the biography by Hill and Simeone. This was reused in "Éclairs sur l'au-delà" 1984 Livre du Saint Sacrament - Organ (Leduc) 1st public performance 1-7-1986 by Almut Rossler at Metropolitan Methodist Church Michigan USA 1985 Petites esquisses d'oiseaux - Piano (Leduc) 1st public performance 25-1-1987 in Paris by Y.Loriod 1985 Conférence de Kyoto - Text (Leduc)Feuillets inédits arr. for ondes Martenot & piano (No date of composition) (Durand) 1986 Un vitrail et des oiseaux - Orchestral - 4.4.5.3; 0.1.0.0; piano solo, xylo, xylorim, marimba,5 perc. (Leduc) 1st public performance 26-11-1988 at Theatre des Champs-Elysees cond. Pierre Boulez 1986 Chant dans le Style Mozart - Clarinet & Piano 1987 La ville d'En-haut - Orchestral - 5.4.5.3;6.4.3.1, piano solo, glock, xylo, xylorim, marimba, 4 perc. (Leduc) 1st public performance 17-11-1989 at Salle Pleyel, BBCSO cond. P.Boulez 1988-92 Eclairs sur l'au-delà - Orchestral - 10.4.10.4;6.5.3.3; crotales, glock, xylo, xylorim, marimba,, 10 perc; 16.16.14.12.10. (Leduc) c.1987-91 Un oiseau des arbres de Vie (Orchestrated by Christopher Dingle) (Leduc). 1st performance 7 August 2015, Royal Albert Hall, BBC Philharmonic, Nicholas Collon. 1989 Un Sourire - Orchestral - 4.4.3.3;4.1.0.0;xylo, xylorim,2 perc; 16.16.14.12.0 (Leduc) 1st public performance 5-12-1991 1990-91 Concert à Quatre - Orchestral - flute solo, oboe solo, cello solo, piano solo and large orch. (Leduc) 1991 Pièce pour piano et quatuor à cordes - Chamber (UE) 1st public performance in Vienna 19-11-1991 Discovered in 1997 (composed c.1928) Prélude - Organ (Leduc) 2017 (based on Messiaen's notes taken from 1958) Fauvettes de l'Hérault - concert des garrigues - (Leduc) Piano (work reconstructed by Roger Muraro édition non répertoriée) 1st performance Toppan Hall, Tokyo, Japan. June 23 2017 Hymne des passereaux au lever du jour - solo clarinet (unknown date of composition) Feuillets inédits, quatre pièces pour Ondes Martenot et Piano. Discovered and arranged by Yvonne Loriod, these four short pieces date from the 1930's and published in 2002.(Leduc) Prélude pour orgue - c. 1928 published 2002 (Leduc) 2011 LECTURE AT KYOTO – KONFERENZ VON KYOTO (TEXTE ANGLAIS ET ALLEMAND) LEDUC AL 30473. German translation by Almut Rößler. English translation by Timothy Tikker Back to top

NEWS Messiaen inspired grand organ to be installed in the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur at Paray-le Monial, France. ©M Ball The basilica at Paray-le-Monial is a popular landmark and one of the most visited religious sites in Europe. The Sacred Heart became a popular worldwide devotion in large part due to the visions of Margaret Mary Alacoque , who lived and died at the monastery next to the basilica. Please support this major project in the name of Messiaen in this truly inspirational building. Download Brochure in French Download Brochure details in English Download Donation coupon ©M Ball Cleveland Museum of Art unearths archive recording of Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod 2 piano concert of 1978 On the occasion of the 70th birthday of Olivier Messiaen, the Cleveland Museum of Art invited the composer to perform a two-piano concert with his wife, Yvonne Loriod, on October 13, 1978, in Gartner Auditorium. This remarkable recording, which captures a rare instance of Messiaen at the piano performing his own music, marks the launch of the CMA Recorded Archive Editions Click here for more background information and the audio files. It is with great sadness that we learn of the death of Claude Samuel, who past away on June 14 2020 in Paris, at the age of 88 years old. A true titan of journalism and French music radio, Claude Samuel is also an emblematic figure in the history of Radio France as producer and Music Director of Radio France (1989 to 1996). A graduate in medicine in dental surgery, Claude Samuel also followed musical studies at the Schola Cantorum with Daniel-Lesur. Very early on, he joined the world of journalism and the music press, but also the world of radio, a medium for which he produced nearly 1,000 programs for France Culture and France Musique. Passionate about contemporary music, Claude Samuel was at the inception of numerous competitions and festivals which allowed him to encourage and promote this music to an ever wider audience. In 1967, as part of the Royan International Festival of Contemporary Art (1965-1972), he launched the "Messiaen competition " for the contemporary piano. He continued this role with the Festival des arts de Persépolis (1967-1970) and the International Meetings of Contemporary Art in La Rochelle (1973-1979), then the Rencontres de Musique Contemporain in Metz and the Festival of Traditional Arts in Reindeer. He was also the initiator of several City of Paris competitions, such as the Jean-Pierre Rampal flute competition, the Maurice André trumpet competition, the Martial Solal piano-jazz competition and the Étienne Vatelot violin-making and archery competition. . First appointed adviser for programming and production at Radio France, Claude Samuel occupied the position of Music Director from 1990. In the same year, he launched the first edition of the festival "Présences", a contemporary music festival which brought together a large and varied audience. Claude Samuel was also the confidant of the greatest contemporary composers of his time, notably Olivier Messiaen , of whom he was the author of biographies and collections of interviews, as well as Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis . In the early 1960's he was head of the Vega record label that launched Domain Musical recordings with Boulez and many first edition recordings of Messiaen. Jennifer Bate OBE, BA (Hons), Hon DMus (Bristol), FRCO, ARCM, LRAM, FRSA (1944-2020) Sir Andrew Parmley . Director of the Royal College of Organists With great sadness the College has learned of the death of Jennifer Bate. She was the daughter of H A Bate, organist of St James, Muswell Hill, in London, and studied theory and composition with him from a young age. She became a member of the RCO in July 1966 and within a year had achieved both ARCO and FRCO. She became a favourite at all the world’s great festivals, performing in over 40 countries: last year she celebrated a 50-year career as a full-time professional organist. Her father emphasized the importance of working with living composers, inviting them to come and hear her playing their music and advise her on how to play it better - leading to long-standing friendships with composers including Sir Lennox Berkeley, Peter Dickinson, Flor Peeters and Peter Racine Fricker. Jennifer was recognised as the world authority on the organ works of Olivier Messiaen with whom she worked extensively. She gave the British premiere of his Livre du Saint Sacrament, and her recording of the work won a Grand Prix du Disque. In 2011, President Sarcozy appointed her to the rank of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, with the citation Organiste, Spécialiste de l’oeuvre de Messiaen. The same year, the French government also awarded her the rank of Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her work worldwide to help French organ music capture a wider audience. As well as the works of Messiaen, Jennifer’s discography includes the music of Elgar, Stanford, Whitlock, the Wesleys and their contemporaries, and the complete organ works of Franck and Mendelssohn. Composers including William Mathias and Naji Hakim wrote for her, and her own compositions for organ, written for concert performance rather than liturgical use, were frequently commissioned for particular events or instruments. Jennifer gave the opening celebrity recital at the Royal Festival Hall in 2014 after the refurbishment of the Hall and organ, and acted as organ consultant when the Harrison & Harrison organ at St James Muswell Hill, installed by her father after the war, required restoration, giving the reopening recital in October 2011. Jennifer pioneered programmes to introduce the organ to children. She was a Patron of the Society of Women Organists, formed last year, and her annual Jennifer Bate Organ Academy, now in its 15th year, is a unique course promoting all-round musicianship for young women. Peter Dickinson, The Guardian 30th March 2020 The organist Jennifer Bate, who has died aged 75 from cancer, was a leading exponent of the music of Olivier Messiaen . They met in 1975, when the composer and his wife, Yvonne Loriod , went to hear her play his music at St James’s, Muswell Hill, north London. Afterwards he asked her if she had heard his own recordings. She had not, but it emerged that she played exactly as he did and he was delighted. They kept in touch, and the uncanny rapport between them lasted until his death in 1992. He heard her play many times and wrote that she was “an excellent organist, not only for her virtuosity. She is a really accomplished musician who loves what she plays and knows how to make others love it too.” She supported many other living composers and made a CD of my own complete organ works and played them all over the world. Jennifer’s international career led her into some challenging situations. One organist in France was so angry he had not been asked to perform that he sabotaged her recital by locking doors, turning the power off and making noises during the programme. In Medellín, Colombia, she was not met because her contact failed to realise that she could be a woman. She once had to get to a recital at St Mark’s, Venice, by wading through the square in 2ft of water. Jennifer loved northern Italy, giving some 150 recitals there, and her constant tours outside Europe took her to Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Caribbean and South America. In her first two Proms appearances (1974-75) she played major organ works by Liszt. Her first recording, in 1978, featured the same composer, on the same Royal Albert Hall instrument. Her complete Messiaen is a landmark; so is the complete Mendelssohn , for which she supplied endings to some unfinished pieces, and a complete César Franck ; then came a whole series of British works including early music CDs of 18th century composers from John Stanley to Samuel Wesley, on instruments of the period. She was always concerned about the organs she was going to play, matching programmes carefully, and usually expected three days on which to rehearse. In 1986 she gave the British premiere of Messiaen’s two-hour Livre du Saint Sacrement in a sold-out Westminster Cathedral with the composer present. Her subsequent recording gained a Grand Prix du Disque. Born in London, Jennifer said of her mother, Dorothy (nee Hunt) that she was “the daughter of an organist, sister of an organist, married to an organist and eventually had me, yet another organist”. Her father, Horace, was the organist and choirmaster at St James’s Church, Muswell Hill, and a well-known teacher of the instrument. An only child, at the age of four Jennifer went to school able to read words as well as music. Her father was influential throughout his lifetime: he was a stern taskmaster, but his insight was invaluable. In her early teens Bate was a pianist but she realised that her hands were too small. So her father showed her what the organ could do and she was hooked. She gained ARCM (1961) and LRAM (1963) diplomas in organ performance, with record high marks, but her father thought she needed a general education, so from Tollington school she went to Bristol University to study music. There her professor told her she would never make a living playing the organ, so on graduating in 1966 she became a librarian at the London School of Economics. Three years later, student disturbances there gave her three weeks off on full pay, during which she could learn major works at St James’s, and so encouraged her to return to music. In 1968 she had married the somewhat older organist George Thalben-Ball , having “fallen in love with his musicianship the first time she met him”. She looked after him during a serious illness, but they divorced in 1972. When Jennifer embarked on her career as an independent concert artist she had no teaching post to support her, but her tours abroad took off from 1970. For her first recital in Paris she invited the organist of Notre Dame and his assistant as well as the composers Duruflé and Langlais with their wives. They all came. In these years Jennifer started to open new organs and to broadcast for the BBC. She composed some pieces and recorded them, and in the new century ran an annual course for young women organists aged 13 to 21, the Jennifer Bate Organ Academy . She was also a fluent writer. Her many awards included being made chevalier of the Légion d’honneur (2011), and in Britain she received an honorary doctorate from Bristol University (2007) and was appointed OBE (2008). She was a radiant personality who endeared herself to everyone when she played, lectured or taught. Jennifer is survived by her partner, Andrew Roberts. • Jennifer Lucy Bate, organist, born 11 November 1944; died 25 March 2020 See also Messiaen and Jennifer Bate here Jennifer Bate b.1944 d.2020 It is with sadness that we report the passing of Pascal Emmanuel Messiaen (b.1937) the only son of Olivier and Claire Delbos (Messiaen's first wife). Pascal passed away on 31st January 2020 and is survived by his wife Josette who he married in 1958. French punk rock artist nods to Messiaen! Didier Wampas and Bikini Machine Olivier Messiaen here LA FONDATION MESSIAEN ~ MESSIAEN FOUNDATION The Olivier Messiaen Foundation was formed to preserve and cherish the work of Olivier Messiaen, one of the major composers of contemporary music in France in the twentieth century. The Olivier Messiaen Foundation was created in 1995 under the aegis of the Fondation de France by his widow Yvonne Loriod Messiaen 3 years after the death of her husband. The foundation will enable the creation of a museum, concerts, master classes etc. at Petitchet in the Isère region of France and also contribute to the conservation of manuscripts, works annotations and belongings. Much of these documents have already been entrusted to the National Library of France (BNF). The Foundation also supports young composers and pianists, as well as researchers or authors dedicated to the work of Olivier Messiaen. La Fondation Messiaen Maison Messiaen ARCHIVES OF OLIVIER MESSIAEN ASSIGNED TO BNF The Olivier Messiaen Foundation, under the aegis of the Fondation de France, told the BNF all manuscripts, archives, scores, records, books, photographs and objects collected by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) and his wife Yvonne Loriod Messiaen (1924-2010), be held at the BNF forthwith. Messiaen himself had already given some documents in the 50's and others had been filed by Yvonne Loriod Messiaen after 1992. Nearly two hundred fifty linear meters of documents (manuscripts of his works, letters, books, photographs, sound recordings, programs) have now joined the departments of Music and Audiovisual in the National Library of France. The material will be gradually made available to researchers, musicians, music lovers worldwide. Fauvettes de L'Hérault - concert des garrigues - (work reconstructed by Roger Muraro) At the turn of the 1960s, Olivier Messiaen left unfinished the composition of a great concerto that he could have titled Les Oiseaux de l'Hérault. The work, for piano, several soloists and orchestra, was to respond to an official commission for the centenary of Claude Debussy, in 1962. The trip to Japan by Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod in the summer of 1962 disrupted the development of this concerto. The fascination that Messiaen had for this country inspires him indeed Sept Haïkaï for piano solo and small ensemble. Undoubtedly pressed by the deadlines, he resumed and adapted some of the themes of the concerto, to Sept Haïkaï. It is by mixing songs of birds of Japan and some of southern France that the composer would pay tribute to Debussy. If the first works found in the concerto propose a too brief orchestration, the score of the piano solo, on the other hand, is magnificent, brilliant and among the most daring of this period. Based on birds' notes taken in 1958 in the Hérault, the work reveals new songs, including the improvisations of a stunning polyglot Hypolaïs and warblers who compete with virtuosity. Taking again the indications of structure left by the author, Fauvettes de l'Hérault - garrigue concert is the title I chose to give to the piece for piano alone, among those evoked by Messiaen in the manuscripts of the concerto. I thank the Fondation Olivier Messiaen and the BnF for their unfailing support of my work. (Roger Muraro) Tokyo naturally imposed itself for the world premiere. Roger Muraro performed Fauvettes de l'Hérault - concert of the garrigues for piano solo, at Toppan Hall, on June 23, 2017, underlining in fact the close links between this new work and Sept Haïkaï. Hérault ***Messiaen world premiere at the BBC Proms 2015 thanks to Birmingham Conservatoire academic*** Christopher Dingle , Professor of Music at Birmingham Conservatoire, has devoted much of his professional career to studying Messiaen. The new piece Un oiseau des arbres de Vie will most likely be the last mature orchestral work to emerge from the catalogue of one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. The composition was previously intended for Messiaen’s final completed orchestral work Éclairs sur l’Au-Delà… (1987-91) and contained his familiar signature ‘Bien’ indicating the movement was complete. The movement lasts about four minutes and the material comes from Messiaen’s transcription of the song of the Tui, a New Zealand bird. A keen ornithologist, all of Messiaen’s music from the 1950s onwards includes birdsong, while much of his music expresses his Catholic faith. Christopher Dingle’s research on the piece was supported by the French Music Research Hub at Birmingham Conservatoire, part of Birmingham City University, and he drew on over 20 years’ study of Messiaen’s oeuvre to fully realise the three-stave score. He said: “From everything we know of Messiaen, it is almost certain that he would have used this movement in another work had he lived longer – it is too good a piece to discard. I am hugely excited about hearing the piece, and this is likely to be the last premiere of a complete mature orchestral movement by Messiaen. “Birdsong was a fascination of his throughout his life, but he became more rigorous and scientific in his approach from the 1950s onwards. He filled many manuscript books with birdsong notations, and much of it was done in the field, but he also used recordings, working the birdsong into his compositions. “His use of birdsong is much more sophisticated than any other composer in terms of the species he represented, the interpretation of song, and the notation. He regarded birds as God’s musicians, almost like angels.” Un oiseau des arbres de Vie is a challenging piece. The orchestra is very large, the woodwind section including seven flutes and eight clarinets, while there is also plenty of tuned and unpitched percussion, and multiple changes of tempo. Dingle added: “It’s fast and furious, with the song flying around the instruments and continually punctuated by a punchy gesture for the whole orchestra. I think it will be breath-taking for the audience and leave the conductor and orchestra breathless!” The world premiere of Olivier Messiaen’s Un oiseau des arbres de Vie took place on 7 August at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. It was performed by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Nicholas Collon. Passerinette The eagerly awaited recording of La Fauvette Passerinette by Peter Hill relased by Delphian DCD34141. La Fauvette Passerinette – a Messiaen world premiere, with birds, homages and landscapes (Messiaen, Stockhausen, Ravel, Anderson, Dutilleux, Sculthorpe, Young, Takemitsu,Murail and Benjamin). The Gillian Weir Messiaen Prize will be awarded annually for the next 10 years for the best performance by a student at Birmingham City University’s Royal Birmingham Conservatoire of a work or works by French composer Olivier Messiaen. During her illustrious international career, Dame Gillian has been particularly renowned for her performances of Messiaen’s organ music; she made the first commercial recording of the complete works, gave the UK première from the composer's manuscript of the ‘Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité’, and has written, lectured and broadcast extensively on his music. Concerning the gift, she spoke of her admiration of the work being done in the Conservatoire’s Organ Department and congratulated them on their glowing international reputation. The award was facilitated by Conservatoire organ tutor Henry Fairs, whose own career has also included complete performances of the composer’s music. Daniel Moult, the current Head of Organ Studies, commented: “All of us in the Organ Department are honoured and delighted that Dame Gillian should aid our students in such a generous and palpable way. Many young musicians are in need of every conceivable financial assistance, and this prestigious prize will be much coveted and appreciated for years to come in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.” Part of Birmingham City University, the new Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a unique contemporary building, incorporating five public performance spaces including a new 500 seat concert hall for orchestral training and performance, a purpose-built organ studio and private rehearsal and practice rooms. Furthermore, as the first purpose built conservatoire in the UK since 1987, the £57 million institution which opened last year is the only one of its kind in the country designed for the demands of the digital age. The Organ Studio at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, for example, houses a Eule Pipe organ with extensive plans for additional new instruments, and features overhead performance lighting and a Dante audio network for flexible location recording purposes. The venue has a distinctive shape and tranquil atmosphere created by natural light flooding onto the pale wood of the interior. It is completely flexible in terms of the set-up and layout of the performance area and audience seating. Meanwhile, organ music plays a vital role in the life of the city of Birmingham, with regular recitals given by City Organist Thomas Trotter and guests on the Town Hall’s historic instrument by William Hill and Symphony Hall’s Klais organ. Birmingham is also home to the libraries of the Royal College of Organists and the British Institute of Organ Studies. The first Gillian Weir Messiaen Prize competition will took place at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, with the winner awarded £1,000. See Gillian Weir's Homepage