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Olivier Messiaen "My faith is the grand drama of my life. I'm a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith. I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colours for those who see none". (Olivier Messiaen) © Copyright protected 1908 - 1992 © Copyright protected Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen 1924 - 2010 Bio READ MORE © Copyright protected © Malcolm Crowthers OLIVIER-EUGENE-PROSPER-CHARLES MESSIAEN (b. Dec. 10, 1908, Avignon, France.d. April 27, 1992, Clichy, near Paris), Olivier Messiaen was the son of Pierre Messiaen, a scholar of English literature, and of the poet Cecile Sauvage. Soon after his birth the family moved to Ambert (the birthplace of Chabrier) where his brother, Alain was born in 1913. Around the time of the outbreak of World War 1, Cecile Sauvage took her two sons to live with her brother in Grenoble where Olivier Messiaen spent his early childhood, began composing at the age of seven, and taught himself to play the piano. On his return from the war, Pierre Messiaen took the family to Nantes and in 1919 they all moved to Paris where Olivier entered the Conservatoire. Bio © Copyright protected UK Premiere of a work by Yvonne Loriod: Grains de cendre (1946) for Ondes Martenot, Piano and Voice Details of performance here . Crowdfund Now! Olivier Messiaen and the Organ – filming started on January 29th, 2024! See here for full details of how to be part of this unique Messiaen project by Fugue State Films Messiaen filming – Stage 1 – Mission Accomplished! Good news here! We have just returned from Blackburn Cathedral where we have completed the first tranche of filming for our Messiaen project. Here is our organist Tom Bell reclining for a well-earned rest at the end of the last filming session! Yvonne Loriod The Complete Véga Recordings 1956 - 1963 Reissued by Warner Classics in January 2024 To commemorate the 100th year of her birth. Works by Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Albeniz, deFalla, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, Henze, Boulez, Barraqué, Stravinsky and Messiaen. 13 CDs album. More details here . New Release of the Complete Messiaen Organ Works including a previously unpublished and unrecorded transcription 'Vie pour Dieu des Ressuscités', by organist Jon Gillock Read more here . New items in the 'Yvonne Loriod' page New items in the 'In the Press' page Des Canyons aux Étoiles... Performed by the Utah Symphony directed by Thierry Fischer under the stars and in the canyon at Zion Park which was one of the places that most influenced Messiaen at the time of writing. See: In The Press here Mount Messiaen The story and reminiscences ( here) . Rescue of MESSIAEN HOUSE in FULIGNY - Aube - Champagne area. This is the house where Messiaen's aunts lived and where he spent his summer vacations for many years. Here he notated his first bird songs and composed, among others, Preludes for piano, Le Banquet Céleste, Le Banquet Eucharistique, Les Offrandes Oubliées, Le Tombeau Resplendissant... and many more sketches that would find themselves in later works. Messiaen continued to visit his aunts and this house throughout his life. The current owner has decided to sell this house and the couple who wish to buy it intend to demolish it in view of the costs for its restoration. The Association LA QUALITE DE VIE reacted immediately, and is doing everything possible to have this "house of character" become an historical monument. The idea is to have this house bought by those who are interested in the world of BIRDS, in HERITAGE, in CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, in the ORGAN, in Olivier MESSIAEN... A FOUNDATION LE CHANT DES OISEAUX DE FULIGNY will make this place a concentration of Culture : "the grown-ups" and "the school children" will be able to learn to recognise the birds, their song, their life... One can imagine a specialised media library... and in a small auditorium one can listen to all the music and songs of the bird world... And maybe a care centre for injured birds and animals... CALL FOR DONATIONS for the safeguarding of LA MAISON DES MESSIAEN in Fuligny (in Aube, in Champagne). Read more here . "LA QUALITE DE VIE, an association governed by the law of July 1, 1901, registered with the Troyes Prefecture on February 9, 2007, whose head office is located at 8 route de Soulaines - 10200 VILLE-SUR-TERRE, represented by its current president, M. Michel GUERITTE, has decided to set up an endowment fund, governed by law no. 2008-776 of August 4, 2008 on the modernization of the economy (JO of August 5, 2008), by decree no. 2009-158 of February 11, 2009, and by the present articles of association, in order to safeguard and acquire La Maison des Messiaen, 18 rue du moulin in Fuligny in connection with the association's purpose. Michel GUERITTE is the founder of this fund. Michel Gueritte, who himself has family connections with the Messiaen's, is spearheading this project so if you wish to partake and help, please email Michel at: michel.gueritte@gmail.com Read more here . New and forthcoming publications see NEWS page HERE The Cleveland Museum of Art invited Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod to perform a two-piano concert on October 13, 1978, in the Gartner Auditorium. The Museum has recently unearthed the recording made of the occasion. See news page . A prayer composed by Olivier Messiaen A rare document submitted by P. Jean-Rodolphe Kars HERE Matthew Schellhorn's special film for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2021 HERE 15th January 1941 QUATUOR POUR LA FIN DU TEMPS at Stalag VIIIA Gorlitz by Messiaen and fellow musician prisoners Henri Akoka, Étienne Pasquier and Jean Le Boulaire. The memorial and visitor centre at the site of Stalag VIIIA Rodrigo De la Prida introduces Messiaen's Modes for Electric Guitar See Media page Tom's Messiaen vlog - Episode 1 Organist Tom Bell is keeping a video diary as he prepares Messiaen's Livre du Saint-Sacrement for a performance scheduled for November 2020. In his weekly vlog he will be exploring the learning process, the music itself, and the questions around how you perform it. Messiaen commissioned sculptor Josef Pyrz to create a work on St. François d'Assise see Gallery page St. François and a passing bluebird. A rare and happy flash by Jim Frazier. This sculpture was made by FRANK C. GAYLORD and is located in the city of CHICAGO-ILINOIS/USA. Special Offer! This Limited Edition publication explores the 20 year history of the Festival Messiaen au pays de la Meije. The book pays tribute to the commitment of its founder and artistic director, Gaëtan Puaud and editor/author Raphaëlle Blin highlights the artistic, social and political experiences that maintained and supported creative music making and activities in the landscape that was so dear to Olivier Messiaen. The 160 stunning photographs by Colin Samuels and the testimonies of the performers, composers, musicologists, volunteers and members of the public reveal all the uniqueness of this adventure. ​ 1998-2018: born of the utopian idea of playing the work Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum for orchestra by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) according to his wish, at the foot of the glacier in front of which he liked to compose, the Messiaen festival in the land of Meije has become an essential place of contemporary musical life, bringing together the greatest performers and composers. A book of more than 300 pages with magnificent photos and images by Colin Samuels , retracing the 20 years of the festival with many testimonies of artists and of festival-goers. With Swiss binding and soft cloth cover : a signed copy to the UK or anywhere in Europe for £31 or €35 including shipping. Any other country including USA and Japan: £36 or €40 includes shipping. Orders can be made directly from Colin Samuels via Paypal at: paypal.me/ColinSamuels Multiple copies or questions, please email Colin at: colinsamuels@yahoo.com ​ Check out the 'writings and articles ' page that includes contributions from Père Jean-Rodolphe Kars ~ Thomas Lacôte ~ Nicholas Armfelt ~ Jeffery Wilson and more. In The Press In the Press READ MORE Reviews of events, concerts, books & CDs. Any contributions to this page would be welcome. So if you would like to submit a review of any Messiaen related feature please get in touch. Contact Us Thanks for submitting! Submit Contact Events etc. READ MORE © Copyright Events Concert Calendar ~ CD New Releases and more!!

Events, CD & DVD Releases Contact Us First Name Last Name Email Write a message Submit Thanks for submitting! Calendar Go to 2025 Calendar 2024 5 January 2024 7.30pm Jonathan Dimmock, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . St Paul's Episcopal Church, Chattanooga, USA 5 January 2024 7pm David Pipe, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . Leeds Cathedral, UK. ​ 6 January 2024 7pm Jeffrey Markinson, organ performs La Nativite du Seigneur . Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, UK. 6 January 2024 9.30pm Pluris Ensemble, Quartet for the End of Time. Theatro Circo, Braga, Portugal. ​ 7 January 2024 3pm Christopher Adler, piano, Canteyodjaya. Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, CA, USA. ​ 7 January 2024 7pm Alaxander Mason, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . Lancing College Chapel, Lancing, UK ​ 7 January 2024 5pm Students of the organ class of Prof. Henry Fairs - University of the Arts, La Nativite du Seigneur . St Paul's Church, Zehlendorf, Berlin, Germany. ​ 7 January 2024 6pm Jean-Pierre Lecaudey, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . Basle Munster, Basel, Switzerland. ​ 7 January 2024 6.30pm Nicholas Freestone, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . Worcester Cathedral, UK. ​ 10-11 January 2024 7 pm Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Les Offrandes oubliees. Helsinki Music Centre, Finland. ​ 12 January 2024 6.30pm Organ students, La Nativite du Seigneur . Duke's Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London, UK. ​ 14 January 2024 4.30pm Simon Hogan, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . Southwark Cathedral, London, UK. ​ 14 January 2024 6pm Michael Harris, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland. ​ 15 January 2024 7pm Messiaen-Tage Gorlitz Quatuor pour la fin du temps , Ensemble Ecoute, Zgorzelee European Centre for Remembrance, Education and Culture Jencow Stalagu VIII, Zgorzelec, Poland ​ 16 January 2024 20.30 Filarmonica della Scala , Riccardo Chailly, Conductor, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum , for orchestra. LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura: Sala Teatro Piazza Bernardino Luini, 6, Lugano , Ticino, 6900, Switzerland. 16 January 2024 7.30pm Rolf Hind, piano, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus . Durham Cathedral, UK. ​ 18 January 2024 8pm Orchestre National de Lille/George Benjamin, Les Offrandes oubliees. L'Auditorium, Lille and January 19 , 8pm le phenix, Valenciennes, France. ​ 18 January 2024 8pm Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Jun Markl, Le Tombeau resplendissant . Music Center at Strathmore; January 20th, 8pm Joseph Mayerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore; January 21st, 3pm Joseph Mayerhoff Symphony Hall, Baltimore. USA. ​ 18-19 January 2024 7.30pm Bilbao Orkestra/Ludovic Morlot, L'Ascension. Euskalduna Conference Centre, Bilbao, Spain. ​ 20 January 2024 7pm On the 100th birthday of Yvonne Loriod, Florian Wiek and Nicolas Hodges, pianos, Visions de l'Amen. Hochschule fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Stuttgart, Germany. ​ 21 January 2024 2.30pm Kurt Nikkanen, violin, Maria Asteriadou, piano, Zuill Bailey, cello, James Logan, clarinet, Quartet for the End of Time . Fox Fine Arts Recital Hall, El Paso, Texas, USA. ​ 26 January 2024 , Mezzo highlights composer Olivier Messiaen ! At 20:30, listen to the Quartet for the End of Time performed by Renaud Capuçon (violin), Pascal Moraguès (cello), Kian Soltani (clarinet) and Hélène Mercier (piano) recorded at the Easter Festival in 2022: https://www.mezzo.tv/.../Messiaen-Quatuor-pour-la-fin-du... At 21h15, relive the concert at the summit Et expspecto resurrectionem mortuorum by Le Balcon under the direction of Maxime Pascal, recorded at 2400 meters altitude facing the Meije glacier during the 2021 Festival: https://www.mezzo.tv/.../Messiaen-%27Et-exspecto... ​ 26 January - 4 February 2024 The Tianjin Julliard School, Tianjin, China Festival Connect 2024 Messiaen and His Legacy. performances - 26 January 2024 7.30pm Le Merle noir; Theme et variations; Poemes pour Mi (Second Book). Tianjin Julliard Concert Hall 29 January 2024 7pm Tianjin Julliard Ensemble Concert, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Tianjin Julliard Tanoto Theatre 1 February 2024 7pm Vocal Chamber Music Concert. Trois Melodies; La mort du nombre . Tianjin Julliard Tanoto Theatre 4 February 2024 3pm Tianjin Orchestra/Ken Lam, L'Ascension . Tianjin Julliard Concert Hall 27 January 2024 7.30pm Helene Mercier, piano, Renaud Capucon, violin, Edgar Moreau, cello, Pascal Moragues, clarinet. Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Eglise de Saanen, Geneva, Switzerland. 27 January 2024 8pm Cairo Symphony Orchestra/Ahmed El Saedi, Les Offrandes oubliees. Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, Cairo, Egypt. ​ 28 January 2024 3pm Emma Agnas de Frumerie.violin, Kaysa William-Olsson, cello, Johan Fransen, clarinet, Peter Frilis Johansson, piano. Quartet for the End of Time . The Grunewald Hall, Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden. ​ 29 January 2024 8.00pm Jenny Daviet (soprano) and Alphonse Cemin (piano), Trois Melodies, Chants de terre et de ciel. Also DELBOS: L'Âme en bourgeon . Theatre Athenee 2-4 Sq. de l'Opéra-Louis Jouvet, 75009 Paris, France. ​ 29 January 2024 7.30pm Thomas Rosenkranz, piano, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jesus . Katzin Concert Hall, Tempe, AZ, USA. ​ 2 February 2024 Shelley Ng, piano, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jesus. The University of Hong Kong (More information soon) ​ 2 February 2024 12 noon Emerald Sun, clarinet, Hee-Soo Yoon, violin, Rosalind Zhang, cello, Jean-Luc Therrien, piano, Quartet for the End of Time . St Andrew's Church, Toronto, Canada. ​ 2 February 2024 19.30 Itai Navon, piano, Catalogue d'oiseaux: La Chouette hulotte, no.5, Catalogue d'oiseaux: L'alouette-lulu, no.6. Pierre Boulez Saal Französische Straße 33 D, Berlin, 10117, Germany. ​ 3 February 2024 4pm Royal Swedish Army Band/Eric Solen Johan Ullen, piano, Oiseaux exotiques . Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden. ​ 4 February 2024 12 noon, Tomeu Moll-Mas, piano Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus .Turina Space, Seville, Spain. ​ 4 February 2024 3.30pm Itxaso Etxeberria & Xi Chen, pianos, Visions de l'Amen . Cloth factory, Trier, Germany. ​ 4 February 2024 8pm Soloists of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Calouste Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal. 6 February 2024 7.30pm Denes Varjon, piano, Helene Pohl, violin, James Campbell, clarinet, Rolf Gjelsten, clarinet, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Nelson Centre of Musical Arts, Nelson, New Zealand. ​ 8 February 2024 7.30pm The UNLV Chamber Music Society faculty members, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Dr Arturo Rando-Grillot Recital Hall, Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA. ​ 10 February 2024 7pm PSU Orchestra/Ken Selden Orli Shaham, piano, Oiseaux exotiques. The Menamins Mission Theatre, Portland, USA. 11 February 2024 3pm Elysium Quartet - Tatiana Kolchanova, violin, Collin Oldham, cello, Maria Manzo, piano, Michael Kissinger, clarinet, Quartet for the End of Time . The Historic Old Madeleine Church, Portland, Oregon USA. ​ 11 February 2024 11am Helene Douzot, violin, Wytske Holtrop, cello, Himawari Arai, clarinet, Cassandre Marfin, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Cavatine de Namur, Belgium ​ 16 February 2024 7pm Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra/Matthew Halls. Les Offrandes oubliees . Tampere Hall, Big Hall, Switzerland. ​ 17 February 2024 19.30 Jan Lisiecki Piano, Prélude no. 1: La colombe, Prélude no. 2: Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste, Prélude no. 3: Le nombre léger. Konzerthaus: Großer Saal Vienna , 1030, Austria. ​ 18 February 2024 11am Staatskapelle Berlin/Finnegan Downie Dear, Roger Muraro, Piano, Oiseaux exotiques . Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin, Germany. ​ 18 February 2024 18.00 Mishka Rushdie Momen, Alasdair Beatson, Piano, Visions de l'amen: Amen des Anges, des Saints, du chant des oiseaux. Kings Place: Hall One, 90 York Way, London, Greater London, N1 9AG, UK. ​ 8 February 2024 5pm Anthony McGill, clarinet, Stefan Jackiw, violin, Nicholas Canellakis, cell, Michael Stephen Brown, piano. Quartet for the End of Time . West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, NJ. USA. ​ 22 February 2024 13.00 Alex Norton , Piano, Charles Tam, Piano, Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus: Le baiser de l'enfant Jésus, Regard de l'esprit de joie. Wigmore Hall36 Wigmore Street, London, Greater London, W1U 2BP, United Kingdom 24 February 2024 7.30pm Nancy Loo, Mary Wu, Shelley Ng, piano, Vvzela Kook, media artist, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus. Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong, HK. Cancelled due to health condition of pianist Shelley Ng. ​ 24 February 2024 7.30pm Students perform Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jesus, Direction artistique, Cédrice Pescia . Salle Franz Liszt Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, Place de Neuve 5, 1204 Genève, Switzerland. ​ 27 February 2024 8.30pm Alena Baeva, violin, Vadym Kholodenko, piano, Fantaisie. Salle Gaveau, Paris, France. ​ 1 - 2 March 2024 8pm Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Matthias Pintscher Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano, Hicham Berrada, video art, Des Canyons aux etoiles.. . Music Hall, Cincinnati, USA. ​ 4 March 2024 19.30 Wigmore Soloists: Michael Collins, Clarinet, Isabelle van KeulenViolin, Kristina Blaumane, Cello Michael McHale,Piano.Quartet for the End of Time . Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, London, Greater London, W1U 2BP, UK. ​ 5 March 2024 20.00 Mami SakatoOrgan, L'Ascension (extraits) . Maison de la radio et de la musique: Auditorium116 Avenue du Président Kennedy, Paris, Île-de-France, 75016, France. 7 March 2024 6pm Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay, violin, Karen Stephenson, cello, Marc van der Wiel, clarinet, pianist tba, Quartet for the End of Time . Royal Festival Hall, London. UK. ​ 9 March 2024 7.30pm Jane Hayes, piano, Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet, Joan Blackman, violin, Ariel Barnes, cello. Quartet for the End of Time. West Vancouver United Church, West Vancouver, Canada. ​ 13 March 2024 8.00pm Jan Lisiecki, Piano, Prélude no. 1: La colombe, Prélude no. 2: Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste, Prélude no. 3: Le nombre léger. Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman StageNew York City, New York, USA . 15 March 2024 7.00pm Japan Century Symphony Orchestra/Masato Suzuki, Les Offrandes oubliees. Symphony Hall, Osaka, Japan. ​ 15 March 2024 8pm Boston Artists Ensemble - Sharon Leventhal, violin, Jonathan Miller, cello, Thomas Martin, clarinet, Randall Hodgkinson, piano. Quartet for the End of Time. Hamilton Hall, Salem MA, USA. ​ 20 March 2024 7pm Vilnius Choir, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra/Benjamin Haemhouts Vaiva Eidukaityte-Storastiene, piano Motiejus Bazaras, ondes Martenot. Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine . Great Hall of the Philharmonic, Vilnius, Lithuania. ​ 20 March 2024 7pm Thomas Drury, piano Jack Bogard, violin, Graham Cullen, cello, Charles du Preez.clarinet. Quartet for the End of Time. University of Southern Indiana Performance Center, USA. ​ 23 March 2024 5.00pm Florent BoffardPiano, Tombeau de Paul Dukas, Catalogue d'oiseaux: extracts . Conservatoire et Orchestre de Caen1 Rue du Carel, Caen, Normandy, France. ​ 24 March 2024 5pm Carolina Costa, cello, Joao Sa, violin, Maria Joao Almeida, piano, Tiago Mala, clarinet, Quartet for the End of Time . O'Culto da Ajuda, Lisbon, Portugal. ​ 29 March 2024 7.30pm Jennifer Frautschi, violin, Bixby Kennedy, clarinet, Sophie Shoco, cello, Orion Weiss, piano, Quartet for the End of Time . Mahaney Arts Center, Olin C Robison, Concert Hall, Middlebury, VT, USA. 29 March 2024 3pm Jonathan Stone, violin, Julian Bliss, clarinet, Tim Lowe, cello, James Cheung, piano, Quartet for the End of Time .Temple Church, London, UK ​ 30 March 2024 8pm Orchestre National de France/Cristian Macelaru Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano. Oiseaux exotiques. Auditorium Radio France, Paris, France. ​ 31 March 2024 3pm Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Garrick Ohlsson, piano. Quartet for the End of Time . Jordan Hall, Boston, USA. 1 April 2024 6pm Thomas Layos, organ, Les corps Glorieux . Christ the King Church, Saarbrucken, Germany. ​ 4 April 2024 7.30pm Piers Lane, piano, Preludes . Wigmore Hall, London, UK. 4 April 2024 8.00pm Karol Mossakowski, Organ, Messe de la Pentecôte (excerpts), Le livre du Saint Sacrement: La joie de la grâce. Église du Sacré-Cœur 14b Chem. de la Turbie, Monte-Carlo, 98000, Monaco. 4 April 2024 7.30pm Thomas Rosenkranz, performs VINGT REGARDS SUR L'ENFANT-JESUS. LaMont school of Music, Denver, Colorado, USA. 5 April 2024 8pm Rachel Gauci, piano. Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus - 6 movements. Malta Spring Festival, Teatru Manoel, Valletta, Malta ​ 7 April 2024 7pm Petras Geniusas and Stephen Coombs, pianos, Visions de l'Amen . Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society, Vilnius, Lithuania. ​ 8 April 2024 13.15pm Darius Battiwalla, Organ, L'Ascencion: Alleluias sereins d'une âme qui désire le ciel, Transports de Joie. Leeds CathedralLeeds, Yorkshire LS2 8BE. UK. ​ 8 April 2024 7pm Ronen Chamber Ensemble, Quartet for the End of Time. Ruth Lilly Performance Hall, Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center, University of Indianapolis, USA. ​ 10 April 2024 7.30pm Gryphon Trio and James Campbell, clarinet. Quartet for the End of Time . Isabel Bader Center, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. 11 April 2024 7.30 pm - 12 April 2024 1.30 pm - 13 April 2024 8.00 pm - 14 April 2024 2.00 pm. Andris Nelsons, dir. Boston Symphony Orch. Yuja Wang, piano Cécile Lartigau, Ondes Martenot. Turangalîla Symphonie . Symphony Hall, Boston, MA. USA. ​ 11 April 2024 , 16 , 18 (6pm) and 14 (3pm), Musical Director, Jonathan Nott, Saint Francis Robin Adams, The Angel Claire de Sevigne, The Leper Ales Briscein, Brother Leo Kartal Karagedik, Brother Masseo Jason Bridges. Saint Francois d'Assise (new production). Grand Theatre Geneva, Switzerland. ​ 11-12 April 2024 8pm 13 7pm Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Hannu Lintu. Le Tombeau respendissant. Philharmonie, Berlin. Germany. ​ 14 April 2024 6pm Manfred Preis, clarinet, Antonis Anissegos, piano, Wolfgang Bender, violin, Mathis Mayr, cello, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Stadhaus, Ulm, Germany ​ 15 April 2024 Time and venue tba, Pierre- Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich, piano, Visions de l'Amen . Madrid, Spain. ​ 16 April 2024 20.00 Sean Shibe, Guitar performs O sacrum convivium (arr. Shibe). Philharmonie de Paris: Amphithéâtre de la Cité de la musique 221 Avenue Jean Jaurès, Paris, Île-de-France, 75019, France ​ 17 April 2024 7.30pm Martin Adamek, clarinet, Jeanne-Marie Conquer, violin, Renaud Dejardin. cello, Dimitri Vassilakis, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, UK. ​ 18 April 2024 19.30. Arngunnur Arnadottir, Clarinet performs Quatuor pour la fin du temps: L'Abime des Oiseaux . Harpa Concert Hall: Eldborg - Main Hall Austurbakki 2, Reykjavík , Capital Region, 101, Iceland. 20 April 2024 4pm Julian Schwarz, cello, Sophie Han, violin, Galen Dean Peiskee Jr, piano, Gabrielle Baffoni, clarinet, Quartet for the End of Time. Scout Hall, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA. ​ 23 April 2024 7.30pm Kaleidescope Collective and Anthony McGill, clarinet. Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Milton Court Concert Hall, London, UK. 27 April 2024 8pm Gregorio Benitez, piano, Catalogue d'oiseaux (7 movements), Steinerner Saal Horst Haschek Auditorium, Vienna, Austria. ​ 28 April 2024 6.15pm Orchestra of Padua and Veneto/Marco Angius Ciro Longobardi, piano. , Oiseaux exotiques Padua, Botanical Garden of the University of Padua, Italy. ​ 29 April 2024 Alfonso Gomez, piano. Catalogue d´Oiseaux. Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy University of Music and Theater Leipzig, Germany. ​ 31 April 2024 Alfonso Gomez, piano . Catalogue d´Oiseaux (excerpts). BBVA Foundation in Madrid, Spain. ​ 1 May 2024 time tba Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano, Catalogue d'oiseaux. Festspielhaus, St Polten, Austria. ​ 1 May 2024 7.30pm Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra/Jac van Steen, Thomas Kelly, piano Ondist Imsu Choi. Turangalila Symphonie. Royal Festival Hall, London. UK. 4 May 2024 2pm Andjei Maevski, clarinet, Victoria Putterman, violin, Jan Koop, cello, Yoko Toda, piano, Quartet for the End of Time . Scene 2.Norwegian Opera and Ballet, Oslo, Norway. ​ 5 May 2024 6:00 pm. Blåsare ur orkestern Filialen, Katarina Chamber Choir, Hans Vainikainen, conductor, Martin Sturfält, piano, Thomas Bloch, Ondes Martenot, Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine. St. Catherine's church, Stockholm, Sweden. ​ 6 May 2024 8pm Barbara Hannigan, soprano, Bertrand Chamayou, piano, Chants de terre et de ciel . La Chapelle Saint Antoine de Plouezoc'h, Plouezoc'h, France ​ 8 May 2024 7.30pm A lecture recital Speakers/The Revd Calum Zuckert, Youth Chaplain and Tom Winpenny, Assistant Director of Music. The Spirituality of Olivier Messiaen's Music:. St Albans Cathedral, St Albans, UK. ​ 8 May 2024 8pm Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra/Maxime Pascal, L'Ascension . Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 8 May 2024 - 12:05 p.m Jorin Sandau performing L'ascension (organ version) Inner city church St. Ludwig, Wilhelminenplatz 9. 64283 Darmstadt, Germany ​ 9 May 2024 7.30pm Barbara Hannigan, soprano, Bertrand Chamayou, piano, Chants de terre et de ciel . Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin, Germany. ​ 9 May 2024 6pm The Ulster Consort, L'Ascension (organ) . St Peter's Cathedral, Belfast, Nth Ireland, UK. ​ 4 May 2024 21.00. Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko. Steven Osborne, piano, Cécile Lartigau, Ondes Martenot, Turangalîla Symphonie . Charles Bronfman Auditorium, Tel Aviv, Israel. ​ 6 May 2024 21.00. Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Pe trenko. Steven Osborne, piano, Cécile Larticgu, Ondes Martenot, Turangalîla Symphonie . Jerusalem Theatre, Jerusalem, Israel. ​ 7 May 2024 21.00. Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Pe trenko. Steven Osborne, piano, Cécile Laricau, Ondes Martenot, Turangalîla Symphonie . Baruch and Ruth Rappaport Center for Art and Culture, Haifa, Israel. ​ 10 May 2024 7.30pm James O'Donnell, organ, Les Corps Glorieux. St James Cathedral, Seattle, USA. ​ 11 May 2024 8pm Barbara Hannigan, soprano Bertrand Chamayou, piano, Chants de Terre et de Ciel . Teatro di San Carlo, Napoli, Italy . ​ 11 May 2024 11am Momo Kodama, piano performs Le Chocard des Alpes; L'Alouette calandrelle; Le Merle de roche, Le Traquet rieur . Bois de Thouars, Talence, Bordeaux, France. 12 May 2024 9pm Ashley Grote, organ, Night Pipes: Olivier Messiaen Organ Works, L'Apperition de l'Eglise eternelle; Diptyque; L'Ascension. Norwich Cathedral, UK. ​ 13 May 2024 7.30pm Divinity and the Cosmos: A Genderqueer Exploration of Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphonie Alison Norris, Director. Manhatten School of Music, Neidorff Karpati Hall, New York, USA. ​ 17 May 2024 7.30pm Renato Wiedermann, violin, Joonas Pitkanen, cello, Damien Bachmann,clarinet, Stefka Perifanova, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Don Bosco, Basel, Switzerland. ​ 19 May 2024 7.30pm Sitkovetsky PIano Trio & Pablo Barragan, clarinet. Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Hamburg International Music Festival, Elbphilharmonie Small Hall, Hamburg, Germany. 19 May 2024 Momo Kodama, piano, performs throughout the day at 8am, 11am, 3pm, 6pm and 10pm, Catalogue d'oiseaux. Grand Theatre, Salon Boireau, Talence, Bordeaux, France. ​ 19 May 2024 5.00pm Ensemble 360, Des canyons aux étoiles: Appel interstellaire. Samuel Worth Chapel The Gatehouse, Cemetery Avenue, Sheffield, S11 8NT UK. 19 May 2024 11.30 Giorgi Gigashvili, Piano, Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus: Le baiser de l'enfant Jésus. Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, London, W1U 2BP. UK. 22 May 2024 13.00 Musicians from the Hallé. Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Hallé St Peter's 40 Blossom Street, Ancoats, Manchester , North-West, M4 6BF, UK. 2 2 May 2024 13.00 Pavel Kolesnikov, Piano,Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus: Regard de l'étoile, Prélude no. 1: La colombe, Prélude . Wigmore Hall 36 Wigmore Street, London, W1U 2BP. UK. 25 May 2024 8pm Paul Jacobs, organ Livre du Saint Sacrament . Hamburg International Music Festival Elbphilharmonie Great Hall, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 31 May 2024 7.30pm Nicolas Hodges, piano, Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jesus. Wigmore Hall, London, UK 2 June 2024 - 6 & 9 , 5pm Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, Audi Jugendchor akademie LauschWerk/ Kent Nagano Anna Prohaska, L'Ange, Johannes Martin Kranzle, Saint Francois, Ioan Hotea, Le Lepreux, Kartal Karagedik, Frere Leon, Davlet Nurgeldiyev, Frere Elie, Alexander Roslavets, Frere Bernard, Saint Francois d'Assise (staged). Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 5 June 2024 7.30pm Raphael Wallfisch, cello, Simon Blendis, violin, Emma Johnson, clarinet, John Lenehan, piano. Quartet for the End of Time . Swaledale Festival.St Andrew's Church, Aysgarth, Yorks, UK. ​ 8 June 2024 3.30pm Gweneth Ann Rand, soprano, Simon Lepper, piano, Rachel Jones, artwork, Harawi . Aldeburgh Festival Britten Studio, Snape, Suffolk. UK. ​ ​ 9 June 2024 (11am), 10th & 11th (7pm), Staatskapelle Dresden/Myung-Whun Chung, Pierre-Laurent Aimard,piano, Cynthia Millar, Ondes Martenot. Turangalila Symphonie . Semperoper, Dresden, Germany. ​ 12 June 2024 6pm Alexander Mason, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur. Lancing College Chapel, West Sussex, UK. ​ 14 June 2024 3pm Gweneth Ann Rand, soprano, Simon Lepper, piano, Rachel Jones, artwork, Poemes pour Mi; Trois melodies . Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, Suffolk, UK. ​ 14 June 2024 7.30pm RNCM Wind Orchestra/Mark Heron Joel Banerjee, piano, Oiseaux exotiques. RNCM Concert Hall, Manchester, UK. ​ 16 June 2024 7pm Symphoniker Hamburg/Sylvain Cambreling David Kadouch, piano, Nathalie Forget, ondes Martenot, Turangalila Symphonie. Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 17 June 2024 4pm Gweneth Ann Rand, soprano, Allyson Devenish, piano, Nick Pritchard, tenor, Daniel Pioro, violin, Chant de terre et de ciel; La Mort du nombre . Aldeburgh Festival, Britten Studio, Snape, Suffolk, UK. ​ 17 June 2024 7.30pm BBC Singers/Sofi Jeannin, Cinq rechants . Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Snape, Suffolk, UK. 17 June 2024 7pm Symphoniker Hamburg/Sylvain Cambreling David Kadouch, piano, Nathalie Forget, ondes Martenot, Turangalila Symphonie. Elbphilharm onie Great Hall, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 20 June 2024 11.00. Rolf Hind, piano. Catalogue d'oiseaux: Le loriot, no.2 . Britten Studio, Snape Bridge, Snape, Suffolk IP17 1SP, UK. ​ 22 June 2024 7.30pm BBC Philharmonic/Mark Wigglesworth, Un Sourire . The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. UK. ​ 22 June 2024 8pm Mark Simpson, clarinet, Juliette Roos, violin, Eliza Millett, cello, Joseph Havlat, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Smorgaschord Festival, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, UK ​ 23 June 2024 3pm Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra/Myung-Whun Chung Keigo Mukawa, piano, Takashi Harada, ondes Martenot, Turangalila Symphonie . Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Tokyo, Japan. 24 June 2024 7pm T okyo Philharmonic Orchestra/Myung-Whun Chung Keigo Mukawa, piano, Takashi Harada, ondes Martenot, Turangalila Symphonie .Suntory Hall, Tokyo, Japan. 26 June 2024 7 pm Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra/Myung-Whun Chung Keigo Mukawa, piano, Takashi Harada, ondes Martenot, Turangalila Symphonie. Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Japan. ​ 27 June 2024 7.30pm Shirley Brill, clarinet, Albrecht Menzel, violin, David Stromberg, cello, Florian Uhlig, Duplex piano. Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Elbphilharmonie: Kleiner Saal, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 9 July 2024 7pm Hai-Xin Wu, violin, Abraham Feder, cello, Jack Walters, clarinet, Zhihua Tang, piano. Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Genesis of Ann Arbor, MI 48104, United States. ​ 10 July 2024 Alfonso Gomez, piano. Petites esquisses d´Oiseaux. Freiburg University of Music. Freiburg, Germany. 14 July 2024 3pm Delphine Trio and Maja Horvat, violin, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Buxton International Festival, St John's Church, Buxton, UK. ​ 14 July 2024 3pm James Campbell, clarinet and Gryphon Trio, Quartet for the End of Time . St John's Elora, Wellington, ON Canada. ​ 18 July 2024 7.30pm. Jan Lisiecki, piano. Prélude no. 1: La colombe, Prélude no. 2: Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste, Prélude no. 3: Le nombre léger . Wigmore Hall36 Wigmore Street, London, W1U 2BP. UK. 26E EDITION DU FESTIVAL MESSIAEN AU PAYS DE LA MEIJE : YVONNE LORIOD À L’HONNEUR In 2024, the Messiaen Festival in Pays de la Meije will highlight a more confidential aspect of Yvonne Loriod's career, that of a composer. Full programme details available from April 11th here . 20 July 2024 - 6:00 p.m. Momo Kodama, piano Catalogue d'oiseaux (excerpts) La Rousserolle effarvatte, L’Alouette calandrelle, La Bouscarle, Le Merle de roche, La Buse variable, Le Courlis cendré. Church of Saint-Théoffrey, Petichet, France. ​ 21 July 2024 9.00pm Roger Muraro, piano, Florent Boffard, piano, Trois pièces pour deux pianos 1. La Martelée 2. Gamelhang 3. La Murmurée (World Premiere) Yvonne Loriod. Visions de l’Amen. Eglise de La Grave, France. 22 July 2024 5.00pm Laura Holm, soprano, Jonas Vitaud, piano, Harawi , extraits : 1. La Ville qui dormait 4. Doundou Tchil, 12. Dans le noir. Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus , extrait : Regard du silence. Eglise de La Grave, France. ​ 22 July 2024 9.00pm CRÉATIONS YVONNE LORIOD . Ensemble TM+ Angèle Chemin, soprano, Julien Le Pape, piano, Nathalie Forget, ondes Martenot, Florent Jodelet, percussions, Anne-Cécile Cuniot, flûte. Grains de Cendre, Trois Mélopées africaines (World Premiere) Yvonne Loriod . Huit Prélude s pour piano, extraits : La colombe, Chant d’extase dans un paysage triste. Le Merle Noir , Vocalise-Étude. Eglise de La Grave,France. ​ 24 July 2024 5.00pm Aline Piboule, piano. Pièce pour le Tombeau de Paul Dukas, Prélude, Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu. Eglise de La Grave, France. ​ 25 July 2024 5.00pm Spirito de Nicole Corti , O Sacrum Convivium. Église de Saint-Chaffrey, France. ​ 26 July 2024 5.00pm Orlando Bass, piano, La Fauvette des jardins . Eglise de La Grave,France. ​ 27 July 2024 9.00pm Jean-François Heisser, piano, Petites esquisses d’oiseaux .Eglise de La Grave,France. ​ 28July 2024 9.00pm François-Frédéric Guy, piano, Regard du Père, Noël, Regard du Fils sur le Fils , extrait des Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus. Eglise de La Grave,France. 30 July 2024 7.30pm BBC Proms, BBC Philharmonic/Nicholas Collon Steven Osborne, piano Cynthia Millar, ondes Martenot, Turangalila Symphonie. Royal Albert Hall, London, UK. 8 & 10 August 2024 4pm Orli Shaham, violin, Per Rostad, cello, Dimitri Atapine David Finckel Sihao He, clarinet, Jose Franch-Ballester, piano,Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Stent Family Hall, Atherton CA, USA. ​ 25 August 2024 3pm Juditha Haeberlin, violin, Udo Grimm, clarinet, Ralf-Andreas Sturzinger, cello, Franck-Thomas Link, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 1 September 2024 5pm Tom Bell, organ, Livre du Saint Sacrament, St Edmundsbury Cathedral, St Edmundsbury, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK. ​ 5 September 2024 7pm Kristian Chong, piano and Friends, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne, Australia. 8 September 2024 6pm Juditha Haeberlin, violin, Udo Grimm, clarinet, Ralf-Andreas Sturzinger, cello, Franck-Thomas Link, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 14 September 2024 7.30pm Neue Musik Ensemble Aachen - Regina Pastuszyk, clarinet, Po-Fan Chen, violin, Cornelia Briese, cello, Theo Pauss, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Engelbert-Humperdinck Musikschule, Sieburg, Germany. ​ 14 September 2024 9am, 4.30pm, 8pm Costanza Principe, piano, Catalogue d'oiseaux. Settembre Musica, Rotunda Della Besana, Milan, Italy. ​ 16 September 2024 6pm Katrien Baerts, soprano, Costanza Principe, piano, Harawi. Settembre Musica, Auditorium Grattacielo Intesa Sanpaolo, Milan, Italy. ​ 17 September 2024 7.30pm Jonny Greenwood, ondes Martenot, Daniel Pioro, violin, Katherine Tinker, piano, Vocalise-etude; Louange a l'immortalite de Jesus from Quatuor pour la fin du temps . Wigmore Hall, London, UK. ​ 17 September 2024 8pm Karajan Acadmie der Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle Kirill Gerstein, piano, Stefan Dohr, horn, Des Canyons aux etoiles... .Berlin Festival, Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany. ​ 19-20 September 2024 7.30pm Gewandhausorchester/Tugan Sokhiev, Les Offrandes oubliees . Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany. ​ 1 October 2024 7.30pm Julie Bullock, soprano, Conor Hanick, piano, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schreiber, choreographer/dancers, Zack Winakur, director, Harawi. The Wallis, Beverly Hills, CA, USA. ​ 23-26 October 2024 the 4th edition of the International Olivier Messiaen Competition! Auditorium-Orchestre national de Lyon, France. ​ 6-7 November 2024 Orchestre de Paris/Klaus Makela, L'Ascension. Philharmonie, Paris, France. ​ 14 November 2024 7pm and November 16th, 2024 3pm Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/Ryan Bancroft. Les Offrandes oubliees . Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden. ​ 17 November 2024 6pm Juditha Haeberlin, violin, Udo Grimm, clarinet, Ralf-Andreas Sturzinger, cello, Franck -Thomas Link, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. The clinker brick factory of the former Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 21 November 2024 8pm Orchestre National de France/Philippe Jordan, Les Offrandes oubliees. Auditorium Radio France, Paris, France. 27 November 2024 6pm uditha Haeb erlin, violin, Udo Grimm, clarinet, Ralf-Andreas Sturzinger, cello, Franck -Thomas Link, piano, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Hall 424, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 15 December 2024 The Sydney Youth Orchestra/Stanley Dodds soli tba, Turangalila Symphonie. Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia. 17 December 2024 6.30pm Piers Maxim, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur . Great Malvern Priory, UK 22 December 2024 3pm Gerard Brooks, organ, La Nativite du Seigneur. Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London, UK. ​ ​ ​ 2025 2025 8 January 2025 8.15pm Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, pianos, Visions de l'Amen . Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 12 January 2025 11am and 13 January 8pm Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg/Kent Nagano Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano, Couleurs de la cite celeste. Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 16 January 2025 (8.15pm) & 19 January (2.15pm), Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Simone Young, L'Ascension . Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 18 January 2025 8pm Barbara Hannigan, soprano, Bertrand Chamayou, piano, Chants de Terre et de Ciel. Cite de la Musique, Paris, France. ​ 21 January 2025 7.30pm Gryphon Trio with James Campbell, clarinet. Quartet for the End of Time . Stude Concert Hall, Brockman Music and Performing Center, Houston, Texas, USA. 26 January 2025 11am Hamburg Symphony Orchestra/Gergely Madras Magdalena Kozena, soprano. Poemes pour Mi . Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 7 February 2025 8pm Belgian National Orchestra/Fabien Gabel, Les Offrandes oubliees . Henry Le Boeuf Hall, Brussels, Belgium. ​ 13 February 15 and 18 2025 7.30pm New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Karina Canellakis, Les Offrandes oubliees . David Geffen Hall, New York, USA. ​ 29 March 2025 7.30pm Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich, pianos, Visions de l'Amen . Mendelssohn-Saal, Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany. ​ 3 May 2025 8.15pm Sharon Kam, clarinet and Sitkovetsky Trio, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Concertgebouw: Recital Hall, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 14 May 2025 19:30 Suisse Romande Orchestra, Bertrand de Billy conductor, Kit Armstrong, piano, Cécile Lartigau, ondes Martenot, Turangalila Symphonie. Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland. ​ 16 May 2025 8pm Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Sir George Benjamin, Chronochromie; Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum . Philharmonie, Paris, France. ​ 22 June 2025 11am Hamburg Symphony Orchestra/Sylvain Cambreling, Les Offrandes oubliees; L'Ascension (excerpts). Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, Germany. ​ 29 June 2025 7pm Symphoniker Hamburg/Sylvain Cambreling, Joonas Ahonen, piano. Des Canyons aux etoiles... .Laeiszhalle, Hamburg,Germany. ​ CD Releases Back to top CDRelease The Seattle Symphony releases Des canyons aux étoiles… (“From the Canyons to the Stars…”) , which takes inspiration from the rock spires, birdsong and night sky of Utah’s national parks. With Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot at the podium and guest artist Steven Osborne on piano, the Symphony presents Messiaen’s starry-eyed journey through nature and the divine. Two concerts of the entire 110-minute-long work were recorded in the stunning acoustics of Benaroya Hall. Catalog Number: SSM1028 In their first release on harmonia mundi, Gustavo Gimeno and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra offer us a dazzling reading of the Turangalîla-Symphonie . Equally attentive to architecture and to detail, they glorify the rich and refined orchestration of the French composer’s vast hymn to love, always on the lookout for unprecedented sonic alchemies. A unique musical and sensory experience! Marc-André Hamelan , piano Nathalie Forget , Ondes Martenot. HMM905336, February 2024 Soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Bertrand Chamayou unite to record the two major song cycles from the 1930's. Poèmes pour Mi are inspired by the precious relationship of Messiaen and “Mi” - the nickname of his first wife; violinist and composer Claire Delbos. Chants de terre et de ciel also emerges from Messiaen's marriage to Delbos, written just after the birth of their son, Pascal. Hannigan and Chamayou delve into the composer's complex language to reveal a natural and flowing music, whose roots extend from the earth upwards to a shimmering realm. As a final work on the album, Hannigan and Chamayou included a rarely performed "scena" of Messiaen: La Mort du nombre (1930) is a dialogue between two souls, in which they are joined by the Canadian tenor Charles Sy and the Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang . Release Date: 24th May 2024 Catalogue No: ALPHA1033 HeideVingtRe Groundbreaking New Release of Messiaen's Monumental Masterpiece New recording of Olivier Messiaen's monumental masterpiece for piano, Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant- Jésus, was released on the composer's birthday, 10 December 2023, brilliantly interpreted by the Danish-Swedish pianist Morten Heide. The release includes a well-written and beautifully illustrated 64-page booklet with insightful information about Messiaen and a comprehensive listening guide, crafted with both laypeople and musicians in mind, making this release truly unique. The album, includes a detailed booklet, and will be available both as a CD and digital format. Gateway Music is responsible for the physical distribution. Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus Telos , DDD, 2022 Release date: 4.10.2023 La Nativité du Seigneur Mark Steinbach - organ Mark Steinbach (Cavaille-Coll-Orgel Eglise Saint-Francois de Sales, Lyon) Label: Aeolus, DDD, 2022 Bestellnummer: 11605848 Release date 3.11.2023 Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps, Murail, Stalag VIIIa : Het Collectief ALPHA 1048 Release date: 23 Nov 2023 Souvenirs D'Oiseaux Roderick Chadwick - piano ​Roderick Chadwick has recorded the second volume in a series which presents Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux coupled with works which are linked either in style or subject matter. This follows the well-received issue of the first volume, entitled ‘La Mer Bleue ’which included Book 1 of the Catalogue. This double album is a continuation of Chadwick's journey through Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux , the latest issue featuring Books 2 through 5, including the cycle's great centrepiece 'La rousserolle effarvatte' (The Reed Warbler), which evokes the sights and sounds of the Sologne region across a full day's span. Release Date: 14th Apr 2023. Catalogue No: DDA21240. Label: Divine Art Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus. Kristoffer Hyldig - piano KRISTOFFER HYLDIG is one of Denmark‘s leading pianists, recognized for his musicality and highly personal, sensitive approach. Known for his versatility, he is in demand as a soloist, as well as chamber musician and lied accompanist. He is a founding member of Messiaen Quartet Copenhagen, where his work comprises artistic programming as well as closely working with composers, commissioning, and premiering pieces. Recorded in Vor Frelser’s Church, Copenhagen during one of the most severe periods during the lock down by producer, recording & balance engineer extraordinaire, Preben Iwan. The album is recorded in the immersive DXD format. Our Recordings, 6.220.677-78. Release date: April 2023 Des canyons aux étoiles... Utah Symphony Thierry Fischer Jasin Hardink, piano Stefan Dohr, horn Keith Carrick, xylorimba Eric Hopkins, glockenspiel Hyperion Recording June 2022 Abravanel Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA Release date: April 2023 HARAWI Marie Kobayasi, mezzo-soprano Fuminori Tanada, piano Recorded 09/2022 Maguelone- MAG 358-443 ​ The Complete Organ Works. Recorded at the Cathedral of Toul to celebrate its 800th anniversary. The organist Pascal Vigneron is the mastermind behind a complete disc of Messiaen's organ scores recorded at the Cathedral of Toul. This project is special because it brings together students from music education institutions who have shared the different pieces. Forlane - FOR_816897. ​ New Release of the Complete Messiaen Organ Works including a previously unpublished and unrecorded transcription 'Vie pour Dieu des Ressuscités', by organist Jon Gillock. see more here . RAVEN compact Discs Visions Pierre-Laurent Aimard , Tamara Stefanovich Olivier Messiaen , George Enescu , Oliver Knussen , Harrison Birtwistle Release Date: 23-09-2022 PTC: 5186957 Details here . See Review Oiseaux exotiques . Francesco Piemontesi (piano), Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Jonathan Nott Pentatone - PTC 5186949. Details here. O sacrum convivium Hildegard von Bingen , Sean Shibe , Chick Corea , Daniel Kidane , Moondog , Oliver Leith , Meredith Monk , Bill Evans , Olivier Messiaen , Shiva Feshareki , Julius Eastman Release Date: 26-08-2022 PTC: 5186988 Details here. Harawi Chant d’amour et de mort The Song Company , Amy Moore (soprano) , Antony Pitts (piano) Hyperion Records 1EMCDA Details here . Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus . Alfonso Gómez (piano) Kairos - 0015081KAI. Details here . Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Louange à l'éternité de Jésus) Fabien CHOURAKI (saxophone) Olivier DEKEISTER (organ) Visage- FR-95U Details here. Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine Mädchenkantorei am Freiburg Münster Martina van Lengerich (Director) Motette-Psallite - MOT DCD 15025 The girls' choir at the Freiburg Minster under the direction of Martina van Lengerich present works by JS Bach, O. Messiaen, WA Mozart, F. Mendelssohn, D. Bartolucci and KA Arnesen. Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. Alfonso Goméz (piano) Fabienne Martin (Ondes Martenot) More information here Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus . Pi-Hsien Chen (piano) Aldila - DDD, 2005. Release date: 19th February 2021 Songs for the End of Time Vol.1. An intriguing take on Messiaen's famous Quartet made here into a quintet. Ben Russell (violin, voice) Brandon Ridenour (tumpet, voice) Yoonah Kim (clarinet, voice) Hamilton Berry (cello, voice) Greg Chudzik (bass, voice ) Available from Bandcamp ​ Catalogue d'Oiseaux. László Borbély (Piano) Messiaen often chooses 'impalpable' as a performance direction. It is no accident; in his works we enter the visible and tangible transcendent through the intangibility of the invisible. We are faced here with something which is seemingly incompatible with our existence. MRC2004 Released 05/08/2020 From My Reel Club. see video preview here. Turangalîla Symphonie. Tamara Stefanovich (piano) Thomas Bloch (ondes Martenot) Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim, Alexander Soddy (conductor). Oehms : OC472 Release date: 18th September 2020 Poèmes pour Mi plus works by Saariaho, Dutilleux, Debussy and Delbos. Katherine Dain (soprano) and Sam Armstrong (piano) The majority of the program on this disc is written during a period on which the particular composer was facing daring circumstances. Like these two musicians were during the production of Regards sur l’Infini. ‘Views on the eternity’, having an outlook on the relief is an ever-present element on this album. Not able to pinpoint when a certain stressful era will end provoked us. We’ve consequently tried to relieve ourselves with a severe focus on our fascination about creating music. Just what the composers on this album did. And then, when it’s brought so heroic, resonant and immensely prepared and aware this duo does, music gives real freedom to the spirit. 7 Mountain Records 7MNTN-024 (release November '20) Quartet for the end of Time and Toru Takemitsu: Kathlein II. Jose Luis Luis Esteresu (Clarinet) Aizol Ituriaga Goitia (violin) David Apelianis (cello) Albert Rosado (piano). IBS Classical No. IBS72020. Releas date:09 July 2020 La Nativite Du Seigneur : Michael Frith, Organ of Brentwood Cathedral. Herald label HAVPCD414. Release date: 23rd October 2020 Divine Art Recordings is delighted to announce a new album of piano music from English pianist Roderick Chadwick . Alongside the first book from Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux are works by Karol Szymanowski and David Gorton. Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux for solo piano evokes the sights and sounds of the French landscape, exploring time and memory across its two and a half-hour span. The diversity of Messiaen’s imagination can be heard in the progression from the sharp, solitary cries of the alpine chough to the fanfares of the golden oriole and harmonious, sapphire-blue sea along the Roussillon coast, where the headlands (in the composer’s words) ‘stretch into the sea like crocodiles’. Release date October 2020.DDA25209 A rare recording has come to light by British conductor Reginald Goodall performing L'Ascension with the Royal Opera House Orchestra Covent Garden in 1961. Full details can be found on the Pristine Classical web site here . Preludes, La Fauvette Des Jardins, La Dame De Shalott: Haruka Miyazaki (Piano) Release date 10 November 2019 299Music HMV Japan here Harawi . Sarah Maria Sun (soprano), Stefka Perifanova (piano)Label: Mode Cat No: MODLP310 Format: LP Number of Discs: 2 Expected Release Date: 10th January 2020Includes 12-page book with complete lyrics plus extensive text on Harawi by Siglind Brun, including copious illustrations and musical examples. NB: there is no CD format release. THE COMPLETE VÉGA RECORDINGS 1956-1963 BY Yvonne Loriod Works by Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Aleniz, deFalla Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, Henze, Boulez, Barraqué, Stravinsky and Messiaen. 13 CDs album. Decca UPC 00028948170692 Charles Chaynes - Piano Concerto (1967 World Premier) Yvonne Loriod with the ORTF Chamber Orchestra Radio broadcast, France. Kipepeo Publishing. ASIN: B06Y286DZ7 First recording of Les Fauvettes de l'Hérault - Concert des garrigues (reconstructed by Roger Muraro - see below) Harmonia Mundi - HMM905304 together with Debussy's Études as part of the Debussy Centenary Edition. Renowned French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard kicks off his exclusive engagement to PENTATONE with a recording of Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (1956-1958). The pianist had intimate ties to the composer himself and his wife, Yvonne Loriod, for whom Messiaen wrote the Catalogue. This is a truly pioneering and groundbreaking recording of Messiaen's masterpiece. Pierre-Laurent brings extraordinary naturalism to the music and his sonic painting takes the playing to another level of virtuosity. An incredible achievement. The luxurious CD box set contains an accompanying bonus DVD, on which Aimard shares his vast knowledge of and love for Messiaen’s work from behind the piano. PENTATONE PTC 5186 670 Jean-Rodolphe Kars performsVingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus. Recorded live by Dutch radio at a concert in the Kleine Zaal of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on 30 April 1976 There have been many Messiaen pianists of note to perform and record his music during the last half-century, not least thanks to the composer’s generosity as a teacher of both the technical and spiritual aspects of his music, which go hand in hand as they do for very few others. Save for Messiaen’s second wife Yvonne Loriod, however, none of those pianists can claim so direct and profound an understanding of the composer and his music as Jean-Rodolphe Kars. This makes the present issue of a hitherto unreleased recording of the Vingt Regards all the more significant:. Olivier Messiaen Organ Works Willem Tanke One can not be grateful enough for the way one of the greatest composers of the 20th century contributed to the organ tradition. This playlist is a work in progress, i.e. it will include Messiaen's complete organ works in due time, also for educational purposes. Visit Willem's Official site for more interesting projects on Messiaen's organ works including 'Olivier Messiaen and the Cave of Forgotten Sounds' This project presents movements of Livre du Saint Sacrement interspersed wth responses and improvisations by Willem one of which is a tribute to Claire Delbos: In Memoriam Claire Delbos. Back to top

Concert Reviews Saint Francois d'Assise Grand Theatre Geneva, Switzerland 11- 14- 16 - 18 April 2024 Musical Director, Jonathan Nott, Saint Francis Robin Adams, The Angel Claire de Sevigne , The Leper Ales Briscein , Brother Leo Kartal Karagedik , Brother Masseo Jason Bridges . Staging, Scenery, Costumes and Video, Adel Abdessemed , Lighting, Jean Kalman, Dramaturgy, Stephan Müller , Choral director, Mark Biggins . Choir du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Choir le Motet de Genève, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande . Ondes Martenot, Thomas Bloch, Jacques Tchamkerten and Caroline Ehret . After weeks of rain and unseasonably cool weather, the sun shone brilliantly over Geneva’s Grand Theatre on the 14th April, and the equally dazzling interior décor was indeed something to behold, although far removed from the subject material that awaited us in the form of Messiaen’s St. François d’Assise. This production, and another in Hamburg, were scheduled for performance nearly four years ago, but had to be cancelled due to the Covid pandemic (both productions will/have taken place this year). From the opening first scene (tableau) La Croix, Adel Abdessemed’s artistic personality was clearly apparent combining a unique blend of staging, scenery, costume and video in a sometimes naive and simplistic way that often mirrored Messiaen’s own approach to the score and libretto. As in many previous productions, most of the action takes place downstage due to the huge orchestral and choral forces required by Messiaen’s score – 119 orchestral players and a choir of 150. Abdessemed chose to drop in one or two huge circular screens to project images and videos pertinent to each tableau. While these images were extremely effective, the screens did just hamper some higher frequency detail and balance from the orchestra behind at times. Nonetheless, the all-important three Ondes Martenot’s were clearly defined and placed at the front left, centre and right of the orchestra ensuring clear spacialisation throughout. Abdessemed’s contemporary 21st century approach was successful in combining the secular aspects of modern-day recycling such as the Frère’s robes adorned with old portable CD players and domestic technological paraphernalia and the Leper draped in plastic refuse bags and light bulbs, with the 13th century fresco of the monastery and a huge replica of the Italian church on Mount Verna in the Stigmata scene. Messiaen’s (and St. François’s) birds got top billing as expected with a giant dove splashed with blood? and mounted on a mound of stones dominating tableau six, and one screen was devoted to a single looped video of an urban pigeon chosen by Abdessemed as the bird most familiar to him from his Paris home. This animated image was often, but by pure chance, in synchronisation with some of the orchestral rhythmic episodes in tableau six, The Preaching to the Birds, and it was at the end of this scene that Abdessemed ‘levitated’ St. François above the stage rather than at the end of the opera as several productions in the past have opted. Talking of levitation, one must not forget the ascending camel presumably representing the farewell to all God’s creatures and possibly a nod to Stockhausen’s Camel Dance in Mittwoch aus Licht! The Kissing of the Leper scene was suitably expressive if not quite as movingly gripping as it might be, but Ales Bricein made the most of his miraculous freedom dance. Claire de Sévigné’s Angel was rather more terrestrial than heavenly, dressed in a plain white dress and lacking some of the Zen-like quality Messiaen intended, but her vocal delivery was refined and poignant with expressive intimacy. She made good use of two wing-like accessories that were coloured as the original design suggested by Messiaen. Robin Adams took on the role of St. François with nonchalant authority with liquidity of the phrasing that was often impressive. There were just signs of vocal fatigue towards the final pages of his role, but this somewhat added to the drama and impending conclusion. A strong supporting cast of Brothers performed with committed intensity and individual characterisation, and the wonderful Suisse Romande orchestra under Jonathan Nott’s ebullient musical direction captured the score with vivid immediacy. The last word, or should I say notes must go to the choirs of Choir du Grand Théâtre de Genève and Choir le Motet de Genève who sang immaculately throughout and filled the entire front of stage in the final chorale of Joie! (see photos here ) InPressTop St. François d'Assise in Stuttgart 11-22-25 June, 2 - 9 July 2023 Staatsoper, Stuttgart Titus Engel Conductor, Anna-Sophie Mahler Director, Katrin Connan Set Designer, Costume Designer, Janine Grellscheid Video, Georg Lendorff Lighting. Ingo Gerlach Dramaturgy. Staatsorchester Stuttgart Staatsopernchor Stuttgart. Michael Mayes Baritone Saint François, Beate Ritter Soprano L'Ange, Gerhard Siegel Tenor Frère Ellie, Elmar Gilbertsson Tenor Frère Massée, Moritz Kallenberg Tenor Le Lépreux, Danylo Matviienko Baritone Frère Léon, Thomas Bloch , Ondes Martenot, Jacques Tchamkerten , Ondes Martenot, Caroline Ehret , Ondes Martenot ©Martin Sigmund To say that putting on a production of St. François d'Assise is ambitious for any opera house is an understatement, but to put on a production and decide to move an entire Act from the opera house to a park area then back again might seem to some, downright foolhardy. Either way that is just what Anna-Sophie Mahler planned for the Staatsoper Stuttgart production that spanned five performances spread over almost a month. Each performance schedule began with a pre concert talk at 1.15pm in the sumptuous grandeur of the first balcony foyer of the opera house, then the performance began in the theatre at 2.00pm with Act I Tableau 1, 2, and 3. (La Croix, Les Laudes and Le Baiser au Lépreux ). Then a tram transfer would take the audience to Löwentobrüke park area where a walk of 1.5km took them to Wartberg while listening to Act II tableau 4 (L'Ange voyageur ) on personal headphones that was recorded prior to the performances. At 6.00pm Act III began with tableau 5 and 6 (L'Ange musicien and Le Prêche aux oiseaux) on the Killesberg open air stage. A return trip by tram to the city centre opera house would give time for a light meal before Act IV tableau 7 and 8 (Les Stigmates and La Mort et la nouvelle Vie) began at 9.00pm. So this took an already lengthy 5 hour opera to 8 hours! HOWEVER, there was a plan B should the weather prove inclement, which was the case on my visit on the 22nd of June. Instead of tram journeys across town, we made a short walk from the opera house to the nearby St, Eberhard's church where a talk and musical demonstration was offered and then we could listen to tableau 4 over headphones in the relative comfort of the church. While I applaud the Staatsoper for their creative thinking and the pilgrimage with Messiaen to bring nature into the opera house, I felt a little uncomfortable with the rearrangement of tableaus 4 and 5, but everything was superbly organised with excellent and helpful staff on hand throughout, as well as some Messiaen Angels guiding us through the park to the church(see photo) . A 'sustainability' theme was adopted from the outset and ‘following a public appeal by Staatsoper Stuttgart, over 300 hoodies were received as donations as costumes. In addition, the Staatsoper distributed knitting kits to interested people who wanted to knit parts of the stage set at home.’ This worked surprisingly well giving a sense of the 13th century rural life of St. François alongside 21st century attitudes and inclinations in the dramaturgy. There were some effective lighting and video imagery on display to remind us of Messiaen's thought processes and these were combined to great effect in the Stigmata scene where the choir were writhing from rear to front stage while being projected on the ceiling at the same time (see photo ). Lighting and costume also played off each other in the 'Angel' scenes. In this production the Angel took on the identity of a brightly coloured dragonfly and the reflective costume was impressive and dazzling as it caught the lights at different angles. The dragonfly element was carried through in the Death and New Life tableau 8 with video projections of a chrysalis morphing into a fully formed insect superimposed at the front of stage while St. François ascended to heaven as one or the same (see photo ). Titus Engels conducted with great precision, and the orchestra responded well despite a few rough edges and a slight lack of experience in Messiaen's bird language. Having said that, my musician friends who were performing, thought that the Sermon to the Birds tableau was all the more moving in the open air version, combining 'live' birds with Messiaen's birds. Michael Mayes (St. François) delivered a heart and soul performance with some (literally) hands on communication with the audience while maintaining the humble spirituality that is so important in the work. I believe that all of the friar brothers were new to the work, except Gerhard Siegel, tenor Frère Ellie, (who performed the role in Madrid 2011) and all gave sterling performances. Moritz Kallenberg as the Leper was exceptional and must be commended for finding his way around the set in such a bulky but effective costume. Beate Ritter's Angel was suitably capricious but just lacked a little purity in pitch in the celestial moments. Despite what must have been a logistical nightmare at times, this production was vibrant and energised while maintaining the spirituality that was so important to Messiaen and the life of St. François. TURANGALÎLA SYMPHONIE London Symphony Orchestra Sir Simon Rattle, conductor, Peter Donohoe, piano, Cynthia Millar, Ondes Martenot. Barbican Hall, London. 14 June 2023 This concert marked Sir Simon Rattles's last concert as Music Director of the LSO in the Barbican Hall and to mark the occasion he chose to conduct one of his personal favourite pieces: Turangalîla Symphonie, and to be joined by two soloists that he have been associated with him and the work over many years, this promised to be an evening to remember. We were not disappointed. The concert began with Ces belles années... a work by Betsy Jolas who enrolled in Messiaen's class at the Paris Conservatoire and succeeded Messiaen as Professor of Analysis in 1975. Ces belles années... is written for (often exclamatory) soprano - (Faustine de Monès in this performance) and large orchestra, with (like Messiaen) plenty of assorted percussion. Rattle coaxed a myriad of exotic and colourful nuances from said percussion as well as the entire orchestral palette that was clearly appreciated by the near capacity audience including the composer who was in attendance and on her feet at the end not looking anywhere near her 97th year. After an interval and stage reshuffle, Rattle and the LSO launched into the Introduction of Turangalîla with characteristic flare and uninhibited emotion, but this is a work of extremes on all levels and Rattle made the most of the quiet moments and silences such as the flower theme and the sensual love theme that recur throughout the work. Contrast that with the bombastic brassy-ness of the statue theme , the frenetic theme of joy, a keyboard based gamelan and you have a musical romp like no other in the repertoire and the players of the LSO gave their all, in honour of their chief conductor. Since his early days with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Rattle has had an innate sense of tempo for this work unlike some younger conductors who unfortunately let their excitement run riot resulting in a loss of detail and focus. Everything is measured while maintaining a sense of shape and direction making the points of climax and rapture even more intense. Both pianist Peter Donohoe and ondist Cynthia Millar have perhaps notched up more performances than most other soloists that have tackled this work, so together with Rattle and the LSO we really did have the Turangalîla dream team. ©M Ball ©LSO Mark Allan TURANGALÎLA SYMPHONIE Guildhall Symphony Orchestra Nicholas Collon, conductor, William Bracken, piano, Cynthia Millar, Ondes Martenot. Barbican Hall, London. 23rd November 2022 As Edward Bhesania states in his concise but informed programme notes, Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphonie remains ‘one of the great milestones’ of 20th –century orchestral music. However, after the first performance in 1949 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Bernstein and a few follow up performances in America and Europe, it’s taken a good half a century for the work to become a staple repertoire piece, not least of course by the rarity of Ondes Martenot players globally. Over the past 20 years, younger orchestras have taken up the challenge, some to great acclaim including the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Junge Deutsche Philharmonic and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and now, among those at the top must surely be the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra. Their performance on the 23rd November under the assured guidance of Nicholas Collon really ‘raised the roof ‘ of the Barbican Hall. There was no cutting back on Messiaen’s stipulated resources, full strings including 10 double basses and full percussion line up that certainly didn’t hold back in the climaxes. That said, Collon also coaxed the more delicate timbres to great effect for example the ‘flower theme’ in the woodwind and the caressing ‘love theme’ in the 6th movement, ‘Jardin du sommeil d’amour’. This movement also produced some fine thoughtful piano work from postgraduate student William Bracken who thoroughly immersed himself in the part and playing from memory created a sense of drama and occasion throughout. Cynthia Millar continued to provided an innate sense of balance and clarity to the Ondes Martenot role and judging by her beaming smile during the lengthy applause at the end, clearly enjoys working with the younger generation on a work that has been so close to her heart for many years. I would have preferred to see the vibraphone, celeste and keyed glockenspiel in front of the stage behind the piano thereby creating a tightly knit ‘gamelan’ section that Messiaen was keen on. Of course this orchestra has not had the historical experience of working together as a seasoned unit and there were a couple of rough edges, but my goodness, they certainly conveyed the exciting exuberance and rhythmic commitment that Messiaen would have loved. ©M.Ball The 23rd November was special because those that could make it earlier were treated to a performance of Harawi in Milton Court Concert Hall just across the road from the Barbican Hall by mezzo soprano, Alexandra Achillea Pouta and pianist, Élisabeth Pion , thus giving us the opportunity to experience two thirds of Messiaen’s Tristan trilogy in one night (the remaining third being Cinq Rechants). What an occasion! To say that Harawi is one of Messiaen’s more deeply personal works is an understatement. Essentially it is a work that explores love and death in a somewhat surrealistic world that is influenced by folk music of Peru, Papua New Guinea and elsewhere. At the time of writing Messiaen’s personal life was in much turmoil having to cope with his wife’s debilitating and declining illness while at the same time a developing relationship with Yvonne Loriod that would eventually culminate in their marriage in 1962. This demanding hour long song cycle was treated with the utmost sensitivity from both Alexandra Achillea Pouta and Élisabeth Pion both of whom brought integrity, personality and clear expressive and emotional engagement to the performance. MB © 11/2022 Des Canyons aux Étoiles... Utah Symphony directed by Thierry Fischer. June 2, 2022. OC Tanner Amphitheater, Springdale, Utah, USA. From the moment I got news of this concert I knew I had to go. Utah had been on my bucket list of places to visit with Messiaen connections for a very long time so this was an opportunity not to be missed. I arranged a 'package' that would include flights, hire car (essential) and hotel and I set off on a whistle stop five day tour that culminated in the concert at the OC Tanner Amphitheater, Zion Park, Utah. Prior to the concert I managed to take in all the sites and areas that so inspired Messiaen throughout the writing of Des Canyons aux Étoiles. .. he described them as 'the most marvellous natural phenomenon in the United States'. Of course, Messiaen's beloved birds feature throughout the work and these are species found in the area as well as elsewhere but there are three movements dedicated to these 'natural phenomenon' that are Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon and Zion Park. So with trusty GPS and hire car I found my way to all these sites and walked in the footsteps of Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod who, in 1972 was surely as awe struck as I was on this occasion. It is one thing seeing these places in books and photos but one really has to be there in person to fully appreciate the immensity, the striking shapes and above all, the colours of the rock formations that are truly breathtaking and unique. The concert on June the 2nd was scheduled to begin at 8.30pm and from 7.30 audience members were shuttled up the winding road from Springdale town to the amphitheater at the foot of the canyon and spot on 8.30, Thierry Fischer appeared and gave a short introduction before the strains of a solo horn set the mood for the first movement Le désert . As is becoming more and more customary, the solo horn was positioned towards the rear of the audience to give a sense of distance and remoteness. Horn player Stefan Dohr gave good time and space for the sound to travel and deflect off the walls of the stage both in this movement and his solo sixth movement 'Appel interstellaire ' where, once our ears were accustomed to the acoustic, every dynamic detail was audible. Commissioned in 1971 to celebrate the bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence, Des Canyons aux Étoile ... uses a modest orchestra, just 44 players, due to the confined space available at the world premiere in Alice Tully Hall but Messiaen's masterful orchestration draws out the raw power of the subject material with vivid immediacy. The score demands a very high standard of virtuosity from all players and the Utah Symphony under Thierry Fischer certainly delivered on all counts. The work also includes important solo parts for horn (mentioned above), xylorimba (Keith Garrick), glockenspiel (Eric Hopkins) and piano (Jason Hardink) all of their parts consisting almost entirely of bird songs. Both Keith Garrick and Eric Hopkins were superb in their roles and Jason Hardink really took this work under his wing (no pun intended!) and made it his own. Without the hinderance of a score, Hardink conjured the avian choruses admirably in the two solo piano movements (IV-Le Cossyphe D'Heuglin and IX-Le Moqueur polyglotte ) and as the ensuing darkness fell on the canyon rocks behind the amphitheater, his sense of naturalism was almost spiritual. Outdoor musical events are always tricky to mic up and balance successfully but the sound team at OC Tanner did a great job with subtle amplification of all sections of the orchestra except the percussion which, from where I was sitting just got slightly lost at times. Nonetheless, having the backdrop of the canyon that Messiaen so loved and experiencing the Utah sky turn slowly from dusk to black, it really was unforgettably - From the Canyons to the Stars... Cedar Breaks Bryce Canyon 13 February 2020. Igor Levit and Markus Hinterhäuser, pianos perform Visions de l'Amen. Milton Court Hall, Barbican, London This was the second in Igor Levit’s series of concerts as the Barbican featured artist and was the first of two concerts that included works for two pianos. Levit’s partner for Vision de l’Amen was Markus Hinterhäuser. Visions de l’Amen was written in 1943 and first performed in Paris during the Occupation by Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod at the Concert de la Pléiade on May 10 that year. Messiaen made no attempt to divide the material between the two pianos and piano one was consciously written for the pianistic talents of Loriod who, even at a young age was able to juggle musical complexities with ease. So her part was assigned the bells, birdsong, rhythmic canons in several layers and so on and piano two (Messiaen’s role) was to supply the thematic material and emotional power. For almost two decades the work remained the sole domain of composer and pupil until Irén Marik and John Ranck made a recording c.1956 and performed it at the Deepest Valley Theatre, USA in 1965 then the Labèque’s took it on in 1969 under Messiaen's supervision. Lately of course many couples have ventured into Messiaen’s world of creation, spinning planets, the agony of Jesus and Jugement, desire and consummation, some with variable results it has to be said. Levit and Hinterhäuser began Amen de la Création with suitable solemn majesty and unlike many recent performances by others, tempo was effective and delivered a sense of Time and Eternity. Levit’s double rhythmic pedal carillon pieced the darkness with just enough light and gave us a hint of things to come. The minim rest had just expired from movement one when Hinterhäuser segued into No.2 Amen des étoiles, de la planète à l’anneau – a brutal dance of the planets in octaves that is eventually joined by the swirling rhythmic and polymodal complexities of piano one. Apart from some over pedaling in piano two, tutti was impressive and the relentless energy and exhilaration heightened the drama. The third Vision, Amen de l’agonie de Jésus focuses on the suffocating confines of the Garden of Gethsemene and Messiaen said of this movement: “God, who’s beyond time…came in order to suffer with us. And I express this in my music…God is above us and still He comes to suffer with us.” This was written at a time when Messiaen’s brother Alain was still in a German prisoner of War camp and his first wife Claire was suffering a debilitating and degenerative mental illness. The music ‘cries’ and shreds the emotions to an almost unbearable degree and the interlocking writing was nuanced and well projected by both performers. Amen du Désir explores two themes of desire. The first slow, ecstatic and longing of a deep tenderness, the second passionate and explosive. Piano two states the opening love song while a sense of clock time is introduced by piano one quietly chiming octave ‘Ds’ where Levit, with legs astride and making eye contact with members of the audience was somewhat distracting. I found Hinterhäuser’s tone a little harsh at times and Messiaen’s detailed dynamics within the chords failed to convince but Levit’s crystalline accompaniment in the development was sensual and played with ardent warmth. As the movement progressed the playing became a little sullied towards the climaxes spoiling the impression at times. Amen des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux transports the listener to the angelic sphere beginning with the angels and saints where the music is pure and sparse and phrasing by both pianists was effective and well shaped. Messiaen’s birdsong was still undeveloped in 1943 but he had a clear idea of the birds that would feature here, albeit in a stylized manner. Levit’s birds were not flawless but a sense of joyous freedom pervaded. Amen du jugement is horrific in character with more bells, this time the ‘bell of evidence’. Both performers created a sense of terror and awe and together with Amen de l’agonie de Jésus these were the most successful of the movements in terms of spiritual energy between the two players. Again, a quick segue launched us into Amen de la Consommation where the opening tempo was as fast as the closing tempo should have been. There are three clearly defined tempo increments in the movement that are designed to drive the music forward adding ecstatic joy and excitement that brings the work to it’s exuberant conclusion. Instead Levit and Hinterhäuser bulldozed their way through with scant regard for dynamic detail and less for the important articulation in piano one at the ‘Un peu plus vif’. Visions de l’Amen is a work that requires two souls who are on an equal spiritual plane and have reached that level of intuition that the playing becomes ‘one’. I did not get that impression from this performance that seemed rather workman-like and over reliant on the score. Levit’s Beethoven is masterful but Levit’s visions were not Messiaen’s Visions. BBC PROM - 13 28th July 2019 Des canyons aux étoiles… Nicolas Hodges (piano) Martin Owen (horn) David Hockings (xylorimba) Alex Neal (glockenspiel) BBC Symphony Orchestra Stephen Bryant (leader) Sakari Oramo , conductor It was with much excitement that I awaited the opening bars of Messiaen’s vision of ‘the resurrected in Paradise’ and ‘the beauties of the earth (its rocks, its birdsong) and the beauties of the physical sky and of the spiritual sky’ as Des canyons aux étoiles… is perhaps the most under-performed of all Messiaen’s orchestral pieces. Written for the bicentennial of US independence, it is the longest of Messiaen’s orchestral work (outdoing Turangalîla Symphonie by two movements and about 20 minutes) but using far less forces than the Symphonie – for example, one double bass as opposed to ten and stripped down woodwind and brass. It does, however retain a major part for piano but no Ondes Martenot, instead solo parts for horn, xylorimba and glockenspiel. I was not disappointed. The performance remained gripping throughout its 12 movements presenting a vast array of musical colours that conjured the vast desert and rocky imagery of the Utah landscape, and its unique ornithological aviary. From the outset of movement one (Le désert), the solitude of the horn solo, scampering scorpions and isolated birdsong immediately drew the listener into Messiaen’s sound world and the almost tinnitus inducing bowed crotales, piccolo and violin harmonics created the deafening silence of the desert. Colour has always been at the heart of Messiaen’s orchestral writing and the BBCSO delivered a vivid palette of hues throughout guided by the baton-less Sakari Oramo who just needed to take a little more time in the slow eighth movement (Les ressuscités et le chant de l’étoile Aldébaran) and the final carillon features in movement twelve (Zion Park et la Cité Céleste) to allow the music to breathe and the detailed textures to fully flourish. Horn soloist Martin Owen took full advantage of the Royal Albert Hall acoustic in Appel interstellaire with well judged pauses and animated communication with the audience. The score is peppered with new and experimental (for Messiaen) sounds including the eoliphone (wind machine), geophone (sand machine), cross bridge bowing in the strings and in movement five (Cedar Breaks et le Don de Crainte) a trumpet blowing into the mouthpiece only, creating strange glissandi that straddles the borders of mystery and the comic. Also, Messiaen’s musical alphabet (first used in his Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte-Trinité) appears several times to spell out the biblical quotations that link the spiritual and physical elements in the work. The two solo piano movements (Le Cossyphe d’Heuglin – The white-browed robin and Le Moqueur polyglotte – The Mockingbird), were played with unshaken security and clear sense of musical architecture by Nicholas Hodges and the ‘bird’ interplay between piano and glockenspiel (played by Alex Neal ) was simply enthralling in Les ressuscités et le chant de l’étoile Aldébaran. David Hockings (xylorimba) is well known for his virtuosity and this was demonstrated laudably in movement eleven (Omao, Leiothrix, Elepaio, Shama) as well as some enthralling duet work with glockenspiel. For those audience members who felt they couldn’t quite stay the course, a great opportunity was missed to experience Messiaen’s vision as a whole in this rare and beguiling performance. ©M.Ball ​ © M.Ball Further review: Prom 13 Review of the the first British performance of Harawi. Interestingly given by Roy Bywood 'tenor' and John Boorman, piano. February 9th 1953 More reviews of Harawi kindly submitted by Nicholas Armfelt Pierre-Laurent Aimard performed Catalogue d'Oiseaux (complete) at Aldeburgh Festival UK 19 June 2016 When news broke several months ago that Pierre-Laurent Aimard would perform Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux at the Aldeburgh Festival in its entirety, not in Messiaen’s written order and in one day from dawn to dusk and beyond, many seasoned concertgoers and Messiaen devotees thought the idea was bonkers and it would never work. How wrong they would be with the whole day sold out and over subscribed soon after booking opened. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Roger Muraro and Michel Beroff are three pianists most closely associated with Messiaen’s piano music and all were pupils of Yvonne Loriod and the couple often referred to them as their (musical) children. So having Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival) in the driving seat for this special event meant that there was no doubt whatsoever that it would not work. Aimard chose to place the pieces of the Catalogue by the time of day associated with the bird songs, so the concerts were presented thus: 4.30am Dawn – 1.00pm – Afternoon – 7.30pm – Dusk and 11.00pm – Night. 4.30am 'Dawn' Concert Hall Cafe. ©Sam Murray-Sutton I have to say that after performing in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis the previous evening, it was somewhat of a struggled to get myself up and arrive in Snape for the first concert at 4.30am. (Hardy twitchers were at the reed beds at 3.30 and before the sun rose). However, any sense of fatigue soon dissolved as we the audience took our seats in the Snape Maltings Concert Hall Cafe facing the window and looking out on the reed beds as the sun rose to the strains of Messiaen’s Traquet Stapazin (Black-eared Wheatear), La Bouscarle (Cetti’s Warbler) and Traquet Rieur (Black Wheatear) all mingling with the Suffolk dawn chorus. At 1.00pm in the Britten Studio the ‘Afternoon’ concert revealed Le Buse Variable (Buzzard), L’alouette Calandrelle (Short-toed Lark), Le Loriot (Golden Oriole) and Le Merle Bleu (Blue Rock Thrush). The 7.30pm ‘Dusk’ concert was presented at RSPB Minsmere Nature Reserve outside on Whin Hill with Les Chocards des Alpes (Alpine Chough), Le Merle de Roche (Rock Thrush) and Le Courlis Cendre (Curlew). Finally back at the Britten Studio, ‘Night’ concluded with La Chouette Hulotte (Tawny Owl), L’Alouette Lulu (Woodlark) and La Rousserolle Effarvate (Reed Warbler). What was most striking throughout the day was Aimard’s complete sense of focus (not to mention stamina) in the three locations and how each acoustic space could respond to Messiaen’s aural ‘paintings’. These works are not merely transcribed songs of the titled bird but rather their entire natural habitat and the relationship with other birds within that habitat are all represented, so natural phenomena such as tranquil lakes and rushes, rugged mountain terrain, crashing waves of the sea, howling wind etc. all form part of the canvas. To present the Catalogue over a 19 hour period is impressive enough but to perform with such nuanced playing, emotional power and unshaken security was just astounding. Le Merle Bleu (Blue Rock Thrush) was simply breath-taking and left me speechless with its glittering and fluid passage work and sense of drama whereas La Chouette Hulotte (Tawny Owl) truly sent shivers up the spine with its depiction of ‘darkness, fear and beating heart’ with a call that at times sounds like (in Messiaen’s words) ‘a child being murdered’. A long way from the peaceful setting of La Bouscarle (Cetti’s Warbler) heard both by Aimard’s poised and piquant playing and ‘live’ by the bird itself in the reed beds at Snape. Presenting the 7.30pm ‘Dusk’ concert at RSPB Minsmere Nature Reserve outside on Whin Hill was a risky masterstroke given the unpredictability of the English summer but one that paid off. Yes there was a vexing wind that kept Aimard’s page-turner on her toes but the effect and musical impression was magical. Special mention must go to the BBC. Musical events in the open air are notoriously difficult to control in both volume and sound quality, but the BBC team got it just right. Having Tom McKinney announce throughout the day was also fitting as he has, (according to the booklet notes) been bird watching all of his life. The Festival book was lavish but just a shame that Messiaen’s descriptions were not printed in full for each piece. In between the concerts, other events took place in and around Snape including Nigel Paterson’s film: Dawn Chorus: The Sounds of Spring, a Festival church service, a concert by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge at Blythburgh Church, an RSPB Walk and an illuminating talk by Christopher Dingle (Messiaen specialist and musicologist) and Nigel Collar (ornithologist). 1.00pm 'Afternoon' Britten Studio ©Matt Jolly For many years Yvonne Loriod’s account of this work had remained definitive, but Pierre-Laurent Aimard took it to a higher plane setting a tough benchmark for pianists such as those attending his master-classes during the previous week. It was Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s final year as artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival and thanks must be given for the diversity of art and music that he brought to Suffolk over eight years but perhaps none more so than that of the 19th June 2016 where the entire landscape and natural beauty of Suffolk played a significant part in Messiaen’s and Aimard’s vision. ©M.Ball 7.30pm 'Dusk' RSPB Minsmere © Matt Jolly 11.00pm 'Night' Britten Studio, Snape. © Matt Jolly Pierre-Laurent Aimard Review of the all-Messiaen concert. St. Mary's Church Penzance, Cornwall. UK 4th June 2016. Featuring Malcolm Ball (ondes Martenot) and Peter Humphrey (piano), with Nigel Wicken (organ). 1. 5 Leçons de Solfege (1934) Nos.l,2,3,5,4. Ondes & piano. 2. O sacrum convivium (1937) soprano (Laura Nicholas) &Nigel Wicken (organ) 3. Two piano pieces played by Peter Humphrey: La colombe (1929) and Rondeau (1943). 4. Le merle noir (1952) flute & piano - (Pippa Drummond, flute; Paul Comeau piano). 5. Feuillets inedit s (unpublished pages) ondes & piano. 6. L'alouette lulu (1957) piano- (Peter Humphrey) 7. Vocalise (1935) Ondes & piano 8. Premiere communion de la Vierge (1944) piano. 9. Oraison des belles eaux (1937) Ondes & piano. 10. Joie et clarte des corps glorieux (1939), Nigel Wicken (organ) *** This all-Messiaen concert was a unique musical event, and it was applauded with great enthusiasm by an audience of over 70 people. A glance at the items in the programme with their dates shows that these are works from the earlier half of the composer's career, the latest in date being L'alouette lulu composed in 1957 when Messiaen was aged 49. The concert included authorized arrangements for ondes Martenot and piano along with some other fine works that have hitherto seldom been performed. None of the pieces is particularly obscure or difficult for the listener. Indeed the intention was for this to be a concert of attractive and accessible music, much of it extraordinarily beautiful - music that deserves to be heard more often. Many people will know of Messiaen's use of the Ondes Martenot in three of his greatest works: Trois petites liturgies de la Presence divine, Turangalila, and Saint François d'Assise. The pieces in this concert, however, were adaptations of the high melodic line of some smaller works, pieces originally written with pedagogical intent - sight-reading exercises or examination tests. In their modest way they often exemplify Messiaen's characteristic melodies, harmonies and rhythms. What is remarkable is their quality, and also their delightful deftness and charm. The 5 Leçons de Solfege (1934) for ondes and piano formed an ideal start to the concert. These sight-reading pieces, originally for soprano but readily adaptable for flute or for ondes, are easy on the ear, some sprightly, others with a mildly melancholy and wistful charm. We were not challenged with any of the loud swoopings and whoopings characteristic of the Ondes in parts of the large orchestral works. This evening we experienced the quieter and ethereal qualities. O sacrum convivium (1937), beautifully sung by the soprano Laura Nicholas accompanied by Nigel Wicken on the organ. This version is rarely performed, though the a capella version is often sung by cathedral choirs. This was a spellbinding and very moving performance. The four piano solos, admirably played by Peter Humphrey, were all remarkably different from one another. La colombe (1929) was delicately evocative; Rondeau (1943) came across as exciting and dazzling with a delightful lightness of touch; La premiere communion de la Vierge (1944) communicated a beautiful and deeply spiritual experience. L'alouette lulu (1957) was wonderful: velvet-dark chords representing night, magical high descending trills of the woodlark, the more percussive brilliance of the nightingale. Le merle noir (1952) for flute (Pippa Drummond) and piano (Paul Comeau) was sensational in its virtuosity and brilliance. The audience was bowled over by it. Of the pieces for ondes and piano, which constituted the bulk of the concert, it was the Oraison des belles eaux that built up to the most sustained intensity. Malcolm Ball and Peter Humphrey achieved an extraordinarily subtle, well-graduated, and compelling melodic and chordal progression. The emotion was overwhelming. The concert concluded with Joie et clarte des corps glorieux (1939) played on the organ by Nigel Wicken using the exact stops and registrations that are indicated in the score. The "joy and radiance" resounded in the church, an exhilarating and fitting culmination. Nicholas Armfelt (June 2016) Turangalîla Symphonie Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Gustavo Dudamel conductor, Yuja Wang, piano, Cynthia Millar, Ondes Martenot Royal Festival Hall London. 16th January 2016 Some might say there was something more dazzling than the Lumiere Light Festival showing over London on the 16th of January and that was the appearance of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel at London’s Southbank performing Messiaen’s mighty Turangalîla Symphonie. Messiaen loved to ‘dazzle’ and we were certainly treated to an aural and visual feast from the moment piano soloist Yuja Wang strode onto the Royal Festival Hall stage sporting a sparkling micro mini dress with matching shoes only out shone by her dazzling and scintillating performance of this quasi piano concerto. Ms. Wang is well known for her concerto performances of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich etc. but not later 20th century works such as this. She may not have this music completely in her bones as Pierre-Laurant Aimard and indeed she seemed a little over reliant on the score at times, but she played the most demanding passages with unshaken security and a kaleidoscopic dynamic sense. This was particularly evident in movement 6 (Jardin du sommeil d’amour) where Messiaen had just started to develop his birdsong writing. Her delicate touch and ‘improvisatory’ approach allowed Messiaen’s birds to flit effortlessly over a cushion of strings and Ondes Martenot melody. As attractive and, again, dazzling her six inch stiletto heels and three inch platform shoes were, they did impair her pedaling at times where some resonances were abruptly cut short and not fully controlled. This was a minor glitch in an otherwise quite staggering performance. Turangalîla Symphonie is new fair for the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and Dudamel added to their repertoire in 2015. This team with Yuja Wang and Cynthia Millar have performed the work in Barcelona, Luxembourg, London and will play in Cologne on the 24th January. The work is not new to ondist Cynthia Millar, having played it countless times over many years now. Her performance here demonstrated just how well attuned her ear is to tonal and dynamic balance of her instrument with the rest of the orchestra. Dudamel stuck rigidly to Messiaen’s orchestral numbers that are inflated in all departments including 10 double basses. I have heard this piece where reductions were made and it really spoils the effect, balance and colour, but not so on this occasion. He conducted with precision and passion coaxing out the delicate ‘flower motif’ played by woodwinds, contrasting this with the burnished white-hot fortissimo ‘statue theme’ in the brass. He also stuck well to Messiaen’s revised tempi with just movement 5 (Joie du sang des étoiles) taking a few bars to settle. I felt the tam tam was a little cautious in the climaxes and the staggered positioning of the metallic instruments (vibraphone, celeste and keyed glock) did not create the intended gamelan effect that Messiaen wanted. Bruce Hodges’ progamme notes were rather too generalised and contained a few minor inaccuracies. He alluded to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde but failed to place Turangalila within Messiaen’s own Tristan trilogy (Harawi, Turangalîla Symphonie and Cinq Rechants). This said, the ‘force’ was certainly with Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the vitality and energy that the orchestra is famous for was 95% evident. I reserve 100% for the performance given by the National Youth Orchestra of GB under Sir Andrew Davis in a 2001 BBC Prom. © Malcolm Ball BBC Proms Friday 7th August 2015 Royal Albert Hall, London. Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Orchestration realised by Christopher Dingle (b. 1971) Un oiseau des arbres de Vie (Oiseau tui) (1987/8, orch.2013/14) world premiere. ‘On either side of the river is the tree of life…’ (Revelations 22:2) ‘Bless the Lord, all birds of the air’ (Daniel 3:80) For those of us who felt that Peter Hill’s recent and exciting discovery of the piano piece ‘La fauvette passerinette ’ was the last piece of Messiaen’s manuscripts to see a new light of day since the composers’ death, imagine our thrill to hear of this 4 minute gem that emerged from the work desk in Paris! This said, many scholars and enthusiasts have known about ‘Un oiseau des arbres de Vie (Oiseau tui) ’ as Chris Dingle pointed out in the highly illuminating Proms Extra talk that was shared with Peter Hill. Messiaen planned for a pair of movements in ‘Éclairs sur l’Au-delà… ’ that featured the tui bird from New Zealand and the lyrebird from Australia. The lyrebird remained in the finished work but Messiaen, reluctantly decided to omit the tui from Éclairs. He had, however, written all the music for the movement in a three stave short score and characteristically approved this by marking ‘Bien’ to note its completion. Thanks to Peter Hill who was granted a copy from Messiaen’s widow Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, Chris Dingle set about the daunting task of orchestrating the movement. It would be very hard to find another as well qualified as Chris to undertake such a task with his boundless knowledge of Messiaen’s final works (especially Éclairs) and a thorough understanding of the orchestral palette used by Messiaen. The song of the tui is remarkable for its vast vocal range as well as being a great imitator of, not just other birds, but also many environmental sounds it hears such as percussive knocks and clicks, swooping glissandi and even the human voice. As one who has been fortunate enough to see and hear this bird first hand (on Tiritiri Matangi Island NZ) I can confirm it is one of the most vocally adept of all the avian species. The result is a 4-minute virtuosic tour de force in all the orchestral departments. Messiaen’s beloved trio of marimba, xylorimba and xylophone featured prominently and executed with great aplomb by the percussionists of the BBC Philharmonic. The tui’s song flits around the orchestra of multiple woodwind, brass and strings at great speed and dazzling metrical complexity often culminating (and concluding) by ‘tumbling’ onto three cellos. The wood blocks are featured in an almost concerto-like capacity and there are smacks of ‘Oiseaux exotiques ’ with repeated tutti stabs, but as Chris Dingle pointed out, the music contains clearly recognisable ‘Messiaen’ but at the same time colours and traits new to his birdsong writing. And it is ‘colour’ that really dazzled us in the Royal Albert Hall this evening by craftsman of 20th (and 21st) century composer/orchestrators. Mozart kicked off the first half with the not too often heard Idomeneo – ballet music and although not 20th century, Messiaen considered Mozart a great colourist who’s influence remained with him throughout his life. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet gave a glittering and moving account of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major as well as the breath-taking Etude de concert by Pierné by way of an encore, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements , Colin Matthews’s delicate and translucent orchestration of Oiseaux tristes from the piano suite Miroirs by Ravel and Ravel’s own orchestral masterpiece La Valse concluding the proceedings. The BBC Philharmonic was on top form in all departments driven by the effervescent Nicholas Collon who coaxed out all the subtle nuances in this feast of nature and colour. © M.Ball Peter Hill and Christopher Dingle ©M.Ball Turangalila Symphonie Philharmonia Orchestra. Esa-Pekka Salonen conductor, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano, Valérie Hartmann-Claverie, Ondes Martenot. Royal Festival Hall London. 28th May 2015 The last time I reviewed the Philharmonia performing Turangalîla Symphonie was back in 2008, Messiaen’s centenary year when they performed the work in sunny Southend-on-Sea, Essex (see below) and the only change in personnel in this performance was ondist Valérie Hartmann-Claverie (Jacques Tchamkerten was in the ondes chair in Southend). This was the final concert in the Philharmonia’s series “City of Light – Paris, 1900–1950” and if you want to go out with a bang then Turangalîla is the ideal choice. But before the mighty Symphonie, we were treated to some sonorous delights of a different kind beginning with Debussy’s Syrinx for solo flute and indeed it could be said that the orchestra ‘grew’ throughout the evening with Simon Coles alone on stage followed by the rarely heard La damoiselle élue for female chorus, mezzo and soprano solo and orchestra, then Turangalîla where the RFH stage was bursting at the seams. From the opening bars of the Introduction it was clear that Messiaen’s ‘baby’ was in safe hands as of course it has been with Salonen for many years now. The orchestral colours so important for Messiaen were clearly defined here and exquisitely balanced throughout. The keyboards (celeste, keyed glock and vibraphone) were positioned correctly at the front of the stage but sadly the mallets used on the vibraphone were too soft to convey the clanging gamelan effect that Messiaen intended. Salonen’s tempi were well judged throughout but for (and this was the case in 2008) the 9th movement where Messiaen revised the tempo from quaver 100 to 80. Salonen produced a rather jaunty jog rather than the mysterious strange and ethereal atmosphere created by ondes, percussion, keyboards and 13 solo strings. If the tempo is too fast the timbral detail and rhythmic personalities are lost or at least thrown into relief. This aside, Salonen and the orchestra produced an epic performance with soloists Valérie Hartmann-Claverie playing entirely from memory with great command and expressive intensity and Pierre-Laurent Aimard setting the whole piece alight with his stunning virtuosity and consistent engagement befitting in this glittering finale to the ‘City of Light’. © MB Messiaenfestival Orgelpark 22 February 2015 Het Orgelpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Fête des Belles Eaux for 6 Ondes Martenot’s Fabienne Martin, Pascale Rousse-Lacordaire, Philippe Arrieus, Haruka Ogawa, Dominique Kim, Augustin Viard. Quatuor pour la fin du temps Thomas Dieltjens, piano Benjamin Dieltjens, clarinet Aki Sauliere, violin Raphael Bell, cello This concert was the culmination of a Messiaen festival organised by Johan Luijmes, (artistic director) and his team at the colourful and attractive Orgelpark venue in Amsterdam. Previous concerts in the series featured such luminaries as Ralph van Raat performing Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus , Berry van Berkum performing Les Corps Glorieux and Musici Nederlands Kamerkoor Klaas Stok with Marcel Verheggen performing Apparition de l’Eglise Eternelle, O Sacrum convivium, L’Ascension, Cinq Rechants, Le Banquet céleste . Although I was unable to attend the entire festival I was determined to make the trip to Amsterdam on Sunday the 22nd to see and hear this performance of Fête des Belles Eaux by ‘Vecteur Ondes ’ (Fabienne Martin, Pascale Rousse-Lacordaire, Philippe Arrieus, Haruka Ogawa, Dominique Kim and Augustin Viard). This piece is so rarely heard live that any performance that is only a short plan trip away is most definitely worthwhile. Messiaen was one of 20 composers commissioned to write a piece in 1937 for a festival of sound, water and light (a ‘son et lumière’) that took place along the river Seine in Paris and after seeing and hearing Maurice Martenot’s new electronic invention in 1928 he opted for a piece featuring 6 Ondes Martenot’s. The performance began after dark where fireworks in the sky were mirrored by jets of water combined with the harmonies of the music. Nowadays we settle for the six Ondists seated in a semicircle in the comfort of a concert hall, as was the case on the 22nd. The virtuosic first Ondes part (the role originally played by Ginette Martenot the inventors’ sister and later Jeanne Loriod) was superbly executed by Fabienne Martin who coaxed the most expressive qualities and emotional intensity from the instrument in movements 4 and 6. The musical material for these two movements later found its way into the Quatuor. Pascale Rousse-Lacordaire guided the overall performance clearly and concisely resulting in excellent ensemble and dynamic expression throughout. Those of you familiar with the oak coloured wooden cabinet style that Maurice Martenot produced together with the eye catching lotus leaf shaped ‘palme’ loudspeaker would have been slightly disappointed as all the performers used the Ondea, a modern version of the original that has no such ‘art nouveau’ qualities. This is not a problem, as the sound quality and characteristics of the Ondea is very close to that of the original Martenot instrument and of course much more reliable, but being a little old fashioned, I just like the aesthetic of the original instrument. However, the metallique speakers (a resonating gong) were used to create the highly effective shimmering in the 6th movement. Also, it wasn’t until 2003 that the new score of Fête des Belles Eaux was published and the timbre registrations were written for the series 7 Ondes Martenot that only includes 3 speakers: Principle, Reverberation and Metallique (D1,D2 and D3). This was a memorable performance of the highest quality that clearly demonstrated the organic, human expressive quality of these instruments that have stood the test of time and sets it aside from modern day synthesizers. The second half of the concert was given over to a scintillating performance of Quatuor pour la fin du temps perhaps Messiaen’s most performed work. If this is the case, then it is still extraordinary how every performance brings something different to the work. Benjamin Dieltjens, Aki Sauliere, Raphael Bell performed their respective ‘solo’s’ with rapt intensity all underpinned by Thomas Dieltjens’ secure, no nonsense pianism that totally captivated the audience throughout. A true Amsterdam standing ovation for both performances was thoroughly deserved. As an extra ‘treat’ there was a running video of an interview with Messiaen and Dutch maestro Reinbert de Leew centred on a performance of La Transfiguration de notre-Seigneur Jésus Christ – what more could we ask for? All thanks to Johan Luijmes and Karlijne Swart for their tireless efforts and hospitality. ©M.Ball St. François d’Assise in Madrid. 13th July 2011 Instalación: Emilia e Ilya Kabakov Disposición escénica: Giuseppe Frigeni Figurinista: Robby Duiveman Iluminador Jean Kalman Director del coro: Andrés Máspero El angel: Camilla Tilling Saint François: Alejandro Marco-Buhrmester El leproso: Michael König Frère Léon: Wiard Withold Frère Massée: Tom Randle Frère Éllie: Gerhard Siegel Frère Bernard: Victor von Halem Frère Sylvestre: Vladimir Kapshuk Coro Titular del Teatro Real y Coro de la Generalitat Valenciana SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden - Freiburg Musical Director: Sylvain Cambreling Since the historical Paris premier of St François d’Assise in 1983 there appears an evolution of two particular trends when staging this immense musical epic. On the one hand directors stick pretty closely to Messiaen’s sometimes detailed production notes while on the other hand some stray so far that if it were not for the music one might sometimes wonder if we’re watching the same work. Teatro Real’s Madrid offering most definitely falls into the former catagory. Madrid’s artistic director Gerard Mortier continues his ‘dream’ of staging St Francois wherever he goes. Directing team Emilia and Ilya Kabakov brought their gigantic tilting dome first seen in the Ruhr Triennale production of 2003 to the Madrid Arena (this and the musical forces were deemed too large to house in Teatro Real’s theatre at opera square in the centre of Madrid). Adapted sports spaces such as the arena are never ideal for ‘acoustic’ musical events even with the large forces employed by Messiaen. The orchestra and choir were reasonably well focused and balanced but some solo roles that were played out on the raised bridge platform to the front and sides struggled with projection at times in particular Gerhard Siegel as Brother Elías. Alejandro Marco-Buhrmester was convincingly immersed throughout as St François and performed with rapt intensity at times. Tom Randle is always a pleasure to see in the role of Brother Masseo bringing a sense of spontaneity to the part although he had considerably less to do in this production than the Nederlandse Opera where he last appeared in the role. Camilla Tilling is by far my favourite Angel. She is familiar with this part now and one is totally transported by her firmly centered non-operatic sound with a purity found nowhere else. Her ‘Noh’-like movements are exactly as Messiaen wished and this is true of the entire production which was meditative rather than sensational – minimal rather than spectacular. Messiaen’s sense of time and tempo are often hard to grasp but musical director Sylvain Cambreling guided the 170 odd performers with security and expressive understanding. The expanded SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden- Freiberg produced some fabulous textures and colours. However, discipline and etiquette was less impressive with members of the brass section holding conversations and even coming and going off stage became a distraction at times. The static ‘stained glass’ dome added coloured lighting throughout -sometimes changing imperceptibly. This plus the candle-lit lighting in the choir gave the whole space an atmospheric spiritual feel. ‘Static’ is the adjective that keeps surfacing in relation to this production and at times one just wished for slightly more animation from characters or stage direction particularly in the Sermon to the Birds where Messiaen’s music is so highly animated we, the audience just had to use a little too much of our own imagination. A huge bird cage completed the stage design with live doves that appeared to respond to light intensity and became animated when lit and less so when in shade. It was therefore a shame that they were not fully lit in the final 2 minuets of the opera – it would have been heart warming to see them joyously flapping to the illuminated brilliance of the final C major chord! It was also a shame that some of the Spanish opera going clientele could not stay the course as they would surely have been spiritually rewarded at the end of this highly successful production that may never be seen again in Spain for many years. © Malcolm Ball St. François in Amsterdam Saint François d’Assise. De Nederlandse Opera, Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam. 1-6-2008. “Know the joy of the blessed by gentleness of colour and melody…and may there be opened for thee the secrets of glory!” These are the words sung by the Angel in Messiaen’s ‘musical spectacle’ (his description) and unlike some recent stagings of Saint François d’Assise, Der Nederlanse Opera production focuses on the words colour and melody with Pierre Audi and his production team ever mindful of Messiaen’s intentions. From the opening scene (La Croix) the lighting and set designs are inventive and appropriate without us having to delve into the recesses of our minds to work out what is going on. The huge expanded Residentie Orkest sprawled from the rear of the stage with musical director Ingo Metzmacher plying his craft from centre stage with great authority and control throughout and thus the orchestra became a genuine character in the opera. Remarkably this sonic powerhouse of 100 plus musicians never once over-powered the voices, a testament to the genius of Messiaen’s orchestration, the sensitivity of Ingo Metzmacher and the acoustics of the Muziektheater. Camilla Tilling (L’Ange) gave a compelling performance both vocally and theatrically. The 5th tableau (L’Ange musicien) in particular left the entire Muziektheater audience utterly breathless and mesmerised with her exquisite vocal line complemented by the ‘other-worldliness’ of the three Ondes Martenot’s and moving with the elegance and ritual of a Noh actor fulfilled Messiaen’s every wish. Angelo Figus’s costumes reflected Messiaen’s vision appropriately without compromise or over indulgence and only the Leper costume lacked a little impact in terms of repulsiveness. Rod Gilfry (Saint François) delivered just the right amount of humility when needed in this mammoth role and despite a troublesome throat at times managed to portray vocally the Saint’s despair, anguish and joy to great effect. All the Fransiscan Brothers responded well to their individual characterization’s, however it was Tom Randle (Frère Massée), who is depicted as rather naïve and innocent, was in danger of ‘stealing the show’ with his witty interactions and mannerisms. Indeed the one ‘masterstroke’ of Pierre Audi’s production was to introduce a group of children in the ‘Sermon to the birds’ where Randle really came into his own with the children clearly enjoying the playful banter. For me this scene communicated and worked far better than any ornithological wildlife film footage ever can. Great use was made of the space and various levels in the Muziektheater with minimal but effective scene changes smoothly articulated. The choir of De Nederlandse Opera were really made to feel an integral part of the production and not just a static sound source at the back of the stage. Their disciplined and well drilled performance driven by Martin Wright. Pierre Audi has brought Saint François d’Assise into the 21st century while at the same time retaining the spirit of Messiaen’s intentions and has succeeded in highlighting the human and spiritual world of Saint François that made the 5 hours of this opera seem like a celestial ‘moment’. ©Malcolm Ball

St François in Geneva All photos © Carole Parodi St.François in Stuttgart 2023 ©Martin Sigmund ©Martin Sigmund ©Martin Sigmund ©Martin Sigmund ©Martin Sigmund ©Malcolm Ball ©Martin Sigmund

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. ​ 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 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. 7. 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. 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 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. 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. 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 Telegraph.co.uk Yvonne Loriod Yvonne Loriod, who died on Monday aged 86, was a celebrated French pianist, a champion of the electronic ondes Martenot instrument, and a specialist in the music of her husband, Olivier Messiaen. Published: 6:52PM BST 18 May 2010 She first met the composer, who was 16 years her senior, when she joined his harmony class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1942, soon after his return from a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp in Silesia. She recalled how "all the students waited eagerly for this new teacher to arrive and finally he appeared with music case and badly swollen fingers". Nevertheless, she liked his open manner of teaching, a contrast to the old-fashioned methods of other teachers. "For me it was an explosion," she said. "It shook all my preconceptions." Yvonne Loriod had already attracted attention as a child prodigy. Taught by her Austrian godmother, one Nelly Eminger-Sivade, she knew all the Beethoven sonatas and Mozart concertos by the time she was 12. Messiaen heard her in concert and was impressed. She also played his eight Preludes. "I found them quite easy. God gave me a very good memory," she recalled. Within months of their meeting she was firmly installed as his muse; Messiaen composed a work for two pianos, Visions de l'Amen, for them to play together and it led to a world tour even before the war ended. They fell in love, but he was already married to Claire Delbos, a composer and violinist with a debilitating mental illness. Delbos was eventually institutionalised, leaving him to bring up his young son, Pascal, alone. As a devout Roman Catholic, Messiaen could not divorce his wife, nor would he commit adultery. "So we cried," Yvonne Loriod recalled. "We cried for nearly 20 years until she died and we could marry." (They wed in 1961, two years after Delbos's death.) All Messiaen's piano music composed after 1943 was written for Yvonne Loriod, including Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus (1944) and the many birdsong works, such as Oiseaux exotiques (1956) and Catalogues des Oiseaux (1958). He said that he allowed himself the "greatest eccentricities" in his writing because he knew that she would master them effortlessly. When Messiaen wanted to compose his musical catalogue of birds, Yvonne Loriod drove him round the country in her Renault as he recorded what he called "God's musicians". She later recalled: "He noted 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." Yvonne Loriod was born in Houilles, to the north-west of Paris, on January 20 1924, one of three sisters. At the Paris Conservatoire her teachers included Lazare Lévy, Marcel Ciampi and Darius Milhaud. She won seven premiers prix and composed a number of works. In 1945 Yvonne Loriod learnt Bartók's fiendish Second Piano Concerto in just eight days for a performance with the Orchestre National de Paris under Manuel Rosenthal; by the age of 25 she was a professor at the Conservatoire. Yvonne Loriod championed not only Messiaen but also other avant-garde composers: she recorded music by Jean Barraqué and Pierre Boulez, and excelled in the music of Bartók and Schoenberg. Her American debut was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in December 1949, playing the ondes Martenot in the Turangalîla Symphony with Leonard Bernstein conducting; the work received its British premiere 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. In 1972 the couple visited the canyons of Utah, him capturing the songs of the local birds, her photographing him standing alone in the enormous crevasses, depicting what he described as the "immense solitude" of the place. The result was the majestic Des Canyons aux Etoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars). A similar, month-long expedition to Australia in 1988 in search of the lyrebird led to a movement of Eclairs Sur l'au-delà (Illuminations of the Beyond). For the last three decades of Messiaen's life the couple lived a simple and devoutly religious life near Montmartre, surrounded by crucifixes, a copy of the Bible and their recordings. Her husband, despite his success, remained organist at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Paris – a post he had held since 1931 – until his death in 1992. Yvonne Loriod – a small, snug lady known as Tante Yvonne – then devoted herself to his memory. She discovered and published forgotten works that she found among his papers and gave occasional concerts, such as her appearance at the Barbican in 1999. 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". 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 (pictured here) 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 LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 18.05.10 | 14h07 La pianiste Yvonne Loriod est morte Le piano du XXe siècle vient de perdre l'une de ses grandes figures : Yvonne Loriod, la muse et seconde épouse du compositeur Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), dont elle fut la principale interprète, est morte à l'âge de 86 ans. Admise il y a trois ans dans une maison de retraite de Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) à la suite d'un coma diabétique, elle y est morte lundi en fin d'après-midi. "C'était une personnalité très forte, exceptionnelle dans son domaine, une figure de proue de la découverte de la musique de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle", a témoigné, très ému, le pianiste Roger Muraro. Née le 20 janvier 1924 à Houilles (Yvelines), Yvonne Loriod a montré très tôt des dons musicaux et des capacités d'apprentissage exceptionnelles. Adolescente, la pianiste a déjà à son actif un répertoire comprenant tout Chopin, 22 concertos de Mozart et les 32 sonates de Beethoven. Au conservatoire de Paris, où elle décrochera sept premiers prix, elle étudie dans la classe d'analyse d'Olivier Messiaen, en compagnie de Pierre Boulez. A partir des Visions de l'amen (1943), qui datent de cette époque, elle créera toutes les œuvres avec piano du compositeur. Pianist Yvonne Loriod is dead. The 20th century piano has just lost one of its great figures: Yvonne Loriod, the muse and second wife of the composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), of whom she was the main performer, died at the age of 86 . Admitted three years ago in a retirement home in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis) following a diabetic coma, she died there late Monday afternoon. "She was a very strong personality, exceptional in her field, a figurehead in the discovery of the music of the second half of the twentieth century", testified, very moved, the pianist Roger Muraro. Born January 20, 1924 in Houilles, Yvonne Loriod very early on showed exceptional musical gifts and learning abilities. As a teenager, the pianist already has to her credit a repertoire including all of Chopin, 22 Mozart concertos and 32 Beethoven sonatas. At the Paris Conservatory, where she won seven first prizes, she studied in the analysis class of Olivier Messiaen, in the company of Pierre Boulez. From Visions de l'Amen (1943), which date from this period, she will create all of the composer's piano works. ​ "UN DÉVOUEMENT TOTAL" "Elle a été d'un dévouement total à la cause Messiaen, qu'elle trouvait génial et dont elle a été éperdument amoureuse dès leur rencontre", dit Roger Muraro. Mais le compositeur, d'abord marié à la violoniste Claire Delbos, n'épousera Yvonne Loriod qu'en 1961, deux ans après la mort de sa première femme des suites d'une longue maladie. Très présente discographiquement (pour les labels Vega, Erato, Ades...), Yvonne Loriod enregistre Debussy, Albeniz ou Berg mais aussi des concertos de Mozart avec... Pierre Boulez, dont elle créera le deuxième livre des Structures pour deux pianos (avec le compositeur) en 1961. Doté d'une technique virtuose, elle offre les premières auditions de pièces d'André Jolivet et Jean Barraqué. Elle révèle au public français des pages de Bartok et Schönberg. Mais c'est surtout l'œuvre de son mari que cette organisatrice hors de pair contribuera à diffuser dans le monde entier, tenant au besoin la partie de piano, comme dans la fameuse Turangalîla-Symphonie, au côté de sa sœur, Jeanne Loriod, joueuse d'ondes Martenot. Une musicienne capable de réduire pour deux pianos le monumental opéra de son mari, Saint François d'Assise, d'orchestrer son Concert à quatre et d'apporter les corrections nécessaires aux épreuves de ses pièces. Quitte à renoncer à composer elle-même – seules trois œuvres de sa main sont connues. Yvonne Loriod aura aussi été une grande pédagogue, au fil de ses déplacements en Europe ou en Amérique mais surtout au conservatoire de Paris de 1967 à 1989, où elle transmettra à plusieurs de ses élèves pianistes (notamment Michel Béroff, Roger Muraro et Pierre-Laurent Aimard) la passion de Messiaen. Selon Roger Muraro, Yvonne Loriod doit être enterrée "la semaine prochaine" auprès de son époux, non loin du lac de Petichet à Saint-Théoffrey, dans le Dauphiné si cher au couple Messiaen. "TOTAL DEDICATION " "She was totally devoted to the Messiaen cause, which she found brilliant and with which she was head over heels in love as soon as they met," says Roger Muraro. But the composer, first married to the violinist Claire Delbos, did not marry Yvonne Loriod until 1961, two years after the death of his first wife from a long illness. Her discography (for the Vega, Erato, Ades labels ...), Yvonne Loriod records Debussy, Albeniz or Berg but also Mozart concertos with ... Pierre Boulez, for which she will create the second book of Structures for two pianos ( with the composer) in 1961. Equipped with a virtuoso technique, she offered the first performances of pieces by André Jolivet and Jean Barraqué. She reveals to the French public, pieces of Bartok and Schönberg. But it is above all the work of her husband that this outstanding musician will help to disseminate throughout the world, holding the piano part if necessary, as in the famous Turangalîla-Symphonie, alongside her sister, Jeanne Loriod, Ondes Martenot. A musician capable of reducing the monumental opera of her husband, Saint Francis of Assisi, to two pianos, of orchestrating his Concerto for four and making the necessary corrections to the proofs of his pieces. Even if it means giving up composing herself - only three works by her hand are known. Yvonne Loriod was also a great teacher, throughout her travels in Europe or America but especially at the Paris Conservatory from 1967 to 1989, where she will transmit to several of her student pianists (notably Michel Béroff, Roger Muraro and Pierre-Laurent Aimard) the passion of Messiaen. According to Roger Muraro, Yvonne Loriod must be buried "next week" with her husband, not far from Lake Petichet in Saint-Théoffrey, in the Dauphiné so dear to the Messiaen couple. Back to top

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

BioTop OLIVIER-EUGENE-PROSPER-CHARLES MESSIAEN (b. Dec. 10, 1908, Avignon, France.d. April 27, 1992, Clichy, near Paris), Olivier Messiaen was the son of Pierre Messiaen, a scholar of English literature, and of the poet Cecile Sauvage . Soon after his birth the family moved to Ambert (the birthplace of Chabrier) where his brother, Alain was born in 1913. Around the time of the outbreak of World War 1, Cecile Sauvage took her two sons to live with her brother in Grenoble where Olivier Messiaen spent his early childhood, began composing at the age of seven, and taught himself to play the piano. On his return from the war, Pierre Messiaen took the family to Nantes and in 1919 they all moved to Paris where Olivier entered the Conservatoire. From very early on it was clear that Messiaen would be a composer who would stand alone in the history of music. Coming not from any particular 'school' or style but forming and creating his own totally individual musical voice. He achieved this by creating his own 'modes of limited transposition', taking rhythmic ideas from India (deci tala), ancient Greece and the orient and most importantly adapting the songs of birds from around the world. He was a man of many interests including painting, literature, and the orient where he took in not only the musical culture but theatre, literature and even the cuisine of foreign countries! ​ The single most important driving force in his musical creations was his devout Catholic faith. My first encounter with the music of Olivier Messiaen was as an impressionable fourteen year old who had just discovered Bach through Jacques Loussier and was listening somewhat idly to a BBC Radio 3 organ recital which concluded with this amazing sound world that was completely new to me and at the same time overwhelming. The piece I was experiencing was Dieu Parmi Nous (God Among Us) from La Nativité du Seigneur. Pierre Messiaen, Cecile Sauvage and Olivier Messiaen MESSIAEN AND SYNAESTHESIA This is what Messiaen had to say regarding his relationship with colours and synaesthesia " When I was 20 years old I met a Swiss painter who became a good friend by the name of Charles Blanc-Gatti , he was synaethesiac which is a disturbance of the optic and auditory nerves so when one hears sounds one also sees corresponding colours in the eye. I unfortunately didn't have this. But intellectually like synaethesiacs I too see colours- if only in my mind - colours corresponding to sound. I try to incorporate this in my work, to pass on to the listener. It's all very mobile. You've got to feel sound moving. Sounds are high, low, fast, slow etc. My colours do the same thing, they move in the same way. Like rainbows shifting from one hue to the next. It's very fleeting and impossible to fix in any absolute way. It's true I see colours, it's true they're there. They're musician’s colours, not to be confused with painter's colours. They're colours that go with music. If you tried to reproduce these colours on canvas it may produce something horrible. They're not made for that, they're musicians colours. What I'm saying is strange but it's true. I believe in natural resonance, as I believe in all natural phenomena. Natural resonance is in exact agreement with the phenomena of complimentary colours. I have a red carpet that I often look at. Where this carpet meets the lighter coloured parquet next to it, I intermittently see marvelous greens that a painter couldn't mix - natural colours created in the eye" Messiaen's particular condition was chromesthesia, a type of synesthesia in which sound involuntarily evokes an experience of colour, shape and movement. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of eleven and stayed until his early twenties learning his 'craft' from eminent teachers including Georges Falkenberg, piano, Jean Gallon, harmony, Noël Gallon counterpoint and fugue, professor Baggers, timpani & percussion, Paul Dukas composition & orchestration, Maurice Emmanuel history of music and Marcel Dupré organ and improvisation, of which Messiaen excelled, becoming organist of La Sainte Trinité in Paris when he was 22 and remained there until his death. It's sometimes easy to forget that Messiaens' contribution to the organ repertoire is probably the greatest since Bach. The term 'craft' is purposeful here as Messiaen developed into a true craftsman in every respect with immensely detailed scores including string bowing, woodwind articulations, fingerings for keyboards and even sticking for percussion. Since the age of eighteen Messiaen had been collecting the songs of thousands of birds throughout France and the world. Early works showed an inkling of birdsong influence but after the war in the late 40s and 50s he began notating their songs in great detail and this became a vital musical source for him. An important event in 1952 was his meeting with ornithologist and author Jacques Delamain of which Messiaen declared: 'It was Delamain who taught me to recognise a bird from its song, without having to see its plumage or the shape of its beak.' Messiaen would begin by selecting a bird, say a warbler where he would notate hundreds of different warblers and then creates a composite of the best elements of all the warblers notated thus ending up with an 'ideal' warbler. The song is usually combined with the birds habitat, surroundings and time of day. 'It's the process of transformation' that Messiaen enjoys and relates this to the paintings of Monet who is not interested in putting say a water lily directly on the water of a picture but representing one variation of the light on the water lilies. His researches were so intense that he became an authoritative ornithologist able to recognize almost any bird that he heard. Several works have been devoted entirely to birdsong namely Catalogue d'Oiseaux, Réveil des oiseaux, Oiseaux Exotique, Le merle noir, Petites esquisses d'oiseaux and almost all other works include substantial references to the songs of birds. At the age of 19 the young Messiaen witnessed the death from consumption of his beloved mother. He moved to his paternal aunts in the countryside of the Aube region of France where, in Yvonne Loriod's words, 'the aunts took their nephew in to revive his taste for life and restore his health with good country air whilst he continued to compose'. Messiaen married his first wife Claire Delbos in June 1932. The daughter of a Sorbonne professor, she was a member of La Spirale, a prominent new music society, an accomplished violinist and composer (works include Primevere 5 Songs for soprano and piano, Deux Pièces for Organ 1935, Parce, Domine {Pardonnez,Seigneur, à votre peuple... } pour le temps du Carême for organ and Marie, toute-puissance suppliante for 4 Ondes Martenots) she sadly became physically and mentally ill and entered a psychiatric hospital (where she eventually died in 1959) leaving Messiaen a single parent bringing up their only son Pascal (born in 1937 a teacher of Russian, died 31st January 2020) throughout the late 30s and 40s. Messiaen and Claire Delbos gave many recitals in and around Paris during the early 1930s featuring the Romantic repetoire for violin and piano and in 1932 he composed Theme and Variations for her and they premiered the piece at a concert held by the Société Nationale. A second work for violin and piano recently came to light entitled Fantaisie composed in 1933. His song cycle Poemes pour Mi is also dedicated to Claire Delbos, Mi being a 'pet' name for her. Both music and words were written by Messiaen and celebrates the joy and sanctity of marriage. Messiaen was to continue to write the texts for most of his choral and vocal works including the Trois Petite liturgies de la Presence Divine which caused some negative if not hostile reactions from many critics at the first performance. He believes that this reaction was due to the fact that the work is full of passion but with a deep religious foundation and this took the critics by surprise and much of the criticisms were not directed at the music. In 1936, with the composers Andre Jolivet, Daniel Lesur, and Yves Baudrier, he founded the group La Jeune France ("Young France") to promote new French music. From 1934 to 1939 he taught piano sight reading at the École Normale de Musique and an organ improvisation course at the Schola Cantorum. Undoubtedly it has been Messiaens' devout Christian faith and Catholicism that has driven his compositional output through the years and there was no greater test of his faith than in June 1940 when he was captured by the Nazis and interned in prisoner of war camp Stalag 8A, Gorlitz , Poland. He recalls that at the time he and everybody in the camp were freezing, starving and miserable. The starvation was such that it heightened his 'coloured' dreams and this coupled with the experience of seeing the 'aurora borealis', coloured waves of clouds, led him to compose what is probably his most performed work: Quatour pour la Fin du Temps (Quartet for the end of Time). He befriended a German officer Carl-Albert Brüll who smuggled him manuscript paper, pencil and eraser which enabled him to retreat to the priests block after morning duties and compose. The instrumentation was governed by the musician friends that were with Messiaen in the camp. These were; violinist Jean Le Boulaire , cellist Etienne Pasquier , clarinetist Henri Akoka and with himself on a rather dilapidated piano premiered the work on January 15th 1941 in front of fellow prisoners who although maybe never understood the new harmonies etc. it took them away from the routine mundane life in the camp. He says that his music 'is not "nice" - it is certain. I am convinced that joy exists, convinced that the invisible exists more than the visible, joy is beyond sorrow, beauty is beyond horror'. Golden Oriole (Loriot) © Malcolm Raines and Chris Knights He returned from captivity in March 1941 and became a teacher and lecturer at the Paris Conservatoire giving his first class on 7th May the same year. He held classes in analysis, theory, aesthetics and rhythm but it wasn't until 1966 that he was officially appointed Professor of Composition (although he had in effect been teaching composition for years). Many famous 'names' passed through these classes including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Alexander Goehr and later George Benjamin who Messiaen had a particular fondness and admiration of. Perhaps the one thing that rubbed off on all these composers is Messiaens' avoidance of regular metre citing it as artificial relating to marches and more popular music. Messiaen supports his argument by pointing out that in nature things are not even or regular. For example the branches of a tree and the waves of the sea are not even patterns. However, what is true is 'natural resonance', and this true phenomenon is what his music is based on. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ This period produced a great outpouring of music including the Trois Petite liturgies de la Presence Divine , the song cycle Harawi, Chant des deportes for choir and orchestra, Turangalila Symphonie , the mammoth piano cycles Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus and Visions de l'Amen for two pianos. These last two works and many more to follow were dedicated to Yvonne Loriod a young and highly gifted pupil who turned up in Messiaens' first class held at the Conservatoire in 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 never imparted his own compositional techniques in his classes but rather steered students along their own paths. Messiaen has not always been in the favour of the musical establishment not least by the BBC who broadcast next to nothing on the then Third programme (later Radio 3) right up until the sixties by which time the composer was in his 60s. It was Felix Aprahamian who brought Messiaen to London in the late 30s to play La Nativite and has been a champion and formidable writer on Messiaen ever since. In the forties and fifties Messiaen was shunned on the one hand by the new 'avant-garde' as too sweet and sentimental and on the other hand by the more conventional musical public as too austere and discordant. Boulez in particular could not come to terms with and reacted against works like Turangalila with it's rich mix of tonal and atonal language saying that he prefers the ones that remain true to one style or the other. However, one gem of a composition was to turn 20th century music on its head. This was 'Mode de valeurs et d'intensites' part of four studies in rhythm for piano. It took Schoenberg's theory of serializing pitches a whole leap forward whereby Messiaen effectively serialized all musical parameters i.e. pitches, durations, dynamics and articulations. Thus each note has a character and identity all of its own which is maintained throughout the piece. For example, middle C will always appear as a dotted minim value, forte dynamic and have a tenuto articulation mark. Although this paved the way for the young generation of composers such as Stockhausen, Boulez, Nono etc. to explore previously uncharted territory, Messiaen himself never pursued the idea beyond that study but continued to turn to nature and his faith as the inspiration and starting points for his music continuing to use his own modes, complex rhythmic ideas and the songs of birds. Having said that, there are occasions when for instance he wanted to describe the horror and blackness of the night in the opening of " The Tawny Owl' from Catalogue d'Oiseaux where he uses a 'Mode de valeurs et d'intensites ' in a poetical sense to portray this. Indeed it must be said that Messiaen did more to advance rhythmic forms and ideas than any other composer of the 20th century. From the original programme of the first performance of Turangalîla Symphonie by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1949 Christiane Eda-Pierre in the role of the Angel: Saint Francois d'Assise Photo: Jacques Moetti In 1975 Messiaen embarked on his most ambitious project of his life, the opera Saint François d'Assise , a work that would occupy him for the following eight years. Saint François represents his life work combining all his compositional techniques gathered over fifty or so years. Scored for 22 woodwinds. 16 brass, 68 strings, 3 ondes Martenot and 5 keyboard percussions playing xylophone, xylorimba, marimba, glockenspiel & vibraphone. There are 6 percussionists playing tubular bells, claves, wind machine, snare drum, triangles,temple blocks, wood blocks, cymbals of various kinds, whip, maracas, reco-reco, glass chimes, shell chimes, wood chimes, tambourine, tôle (thunder sheet), gongs, tam tam, crotales tom toms and geophone (sand machine) together with 7 main solo characters and a choir of 150 it is certainly the largest forces Messiaen considered.Among the best essays on this work are Paul Griffiths' account in The Messiaen Companion and Messiaens' own comments in an interview with him. Soon after Messiaen's death I happened to be visiting Paris and felt the need to pay my respects at La Sainte Trinité, the church where Messiaen conceived so many of his great organ works. I was lucky enough to meet Father Yves de Boisrehen who for many years read the lessons etc. and said how he would be amazed when his words would suddenly 'come to life' for the congregation through the improvisations of Messiaen responding at the organ. Some would say 'an impossible act to follow' but in 1993 Naji Hakim entered that revered organ loft at la Trinité as successor to Messiaen. An accomplished composer and improviser, Naji Hakim was the one person Messiaen felt comfortable in the knowledge that the great French tradition of organist - composer and improviser would continue at la Trinité. Naji Hakim's reign came to an end in 2008 the centenary of Messiaen's birth. Thanks to today's mass audio market you won't have to scratch around as I did, finding recordings of the greatest French composer since Debussy. Fragments of Messiaen's music have found their way into several feature films including: Ken Russell's Dante's Inferno (Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum), the BBC documentary The Ascent of Man (also Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum), Oren Moverman's The Dinner (Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps) and Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant (Oraison-L'eau from Fêtes des Belles Eaux). Messiaen received many honours and prizes globally including: 1959 Nomination as an Officier of the Légion d'honneur 1967 Member of the Institut de France 1969 Calouste Gulbenkian Prize 1971 Erasmus Award 1975 Ernest von Siemens Award 1975 Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Literature and Art of Belgium 1975 Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society 1978 The White Cliffs in Utah were renamed Mount Messiaen 1980 Presentation of the Croix de Commander of the Belgian Order of the Crown 1983 Wolf Foundation of the Arts Prize (Jerusalem) 1985 Inamori Foundation Prize (Kyoto) 1987 He was promoted to the highest rank, Grand-Croix, of the Légion d'honneur 1989 Primio Internazionale Paolo VI 1988 Back to top

NEWS REAKTION BOOKS 1 May 2024 9781789148657 234 mm x 156 mm | 208 pages 20 illustrations Hardback | £25 World Rights: Reaktion OLIVIER MESSIAEN A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY This groundbreaking biography offers fresh perspectives on the life, ideas and music of French twentieth-century composer, organist and ornithologist Olivier Messiaen. Drawing on previously unexplored sketches and archival material, Robert Sholl seamlessly combines elements of biography, musicology, theology, philosophy, psychoanalysis and aesthetics to present a nuanced perspective on Messiaen’s work. This book examines the profound impact of Messiaen’s devout Catholicism, which found expression through his work as a church organist, his engagement with birdsong, his interaction with Surrealism and his influence on major musical figures of the latter twentieth century. Unlike previous biographies, this book also considers the perspectives of Messiaen’s contemporaries and students, providing a comprehensive understanding of his life and artistic legacy. THE WINNERS OF THE 2022 EDITION OF THE OLIVIER MESSIAEN INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION After a high-flying final, the jury consisting of great specialists of the organ and Olivier Messiaen presented the prizes for the 2022 edition: OLIVIER MESSIAEN GRAND PRIX: Lukas Nagel - SECOND PRIZE: Luca Akaeda Santesson - THIRD PRIZE: Pierre-Francois Purson - FOURTH PRIZE: Kasumi Hamano - PRIZE FOR THE BEST INTERPRETATION OF OLIVIER MESSIAEN'S WORKS: Luca Akaeda Santesson - AWARD FOR THE BEST PERFORMANCE OF THE NEW WORK: Lukas Nagel - PUBLIC AWARD : Kasumi Hamano A big congratulations to all the candidates and winners! 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

The 'really' complete organ works by Messiaen. In 2014, Jon Gillock began releasing his recordings of Messiaen’s Complete Organ Works on the Raven label and the project is now finished with the addition of a recently discovered transcription entitled 'Vie pour Dieu des Ressuscités '. They have been recorded on the new organ by Pascal Quoirin (St. Didier, France) at The Church of the Ascension, NYC. He participated in the design of this French organ, which is ideal for Messiaen’s music. Although the acoustic in the church is excellent and warm, it is not terribly reverberant. This aspect provides an added dimension to this music because one can hear all the detail of the compositions, which are not hidden by an overly reverberant space. This acoustic is similar to that found in concert halls, where orchestras perform Messiaen’s music. These recordings show that this unusual body of music can function in more than one setting. On January 15, 1974, Jon Gillock gave the New York premiere of Olivier Messiaen’s Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité at The Church of the Ascension, NYC. That single performance launched him into a career as a concert artist almost over night, giving premieres of this fabulous work from coast to coast. The following year, he gave the first New York performance of Messiaen’s then Complete Works for Organ — the Livre du Saint Sacrement had not yet been written — in a series of five concerts. Soon afterwards, he met Messiaen who invited Gillock to visit him in Paris. In 1977, Gillock went to Paris to study with his Maître at the Paris Conservatory. In 1986, Messiaen presented Gillock with a copy of his manuscript for the new Livre du Saint Sacrement , authorizing him to give performances of this epic masterpiece before its publication. Again, Gillock gave the New York premiere, which was again followed by a transcontinental tour premiering this piece around the country to wide critical and public acclaim. He has given several other special New York performances of this work — in 1988, to celebrate Messiaen’s 80th birthday; in 1992, as a memorial tribute to Messiaen at the time of his death; and in 1996, for the opening concert of the Convention of the American Guild of Organists that celebrated their 100th anniversary. The work, Vie pour Dieu des Ressuscités was recently discovered (while the Messiaen collection was being catalogued at the Bibliothèque de France) within the manuscript of Les Corps glorieux on the back of the first movement (Subtililté des Corps glorieux ) and seems to have been considered by Messiaen for the second movement of that work. The work itself is a transcription for organ of the fourth movement from Fête des belles Eaux entitled L'Eau, a transcription of which became the fifth movement of Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Praise to the Eternity of Jesus ). Because Messiaen gave the organ transcription a characteristic subtitle from the scriptures: "Alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord; charity never faileth." - St. Paul, letter to the Romans 6:11 and I Corinthians 13:8, and its substantial 13min duration, must have been seriously considered at the time. Jon Gillock provides extensive notes in the CD booklet on this and all the works recorded along with photographs and organ details that are sumptuously presented in all six jewel cases (there are six releases three of which are double CDs for the price of one). Nine CDs in all from Raven Compact Discs here . ​ Jon Gollock gave all the New York premieres of every organ piece by Messiaen since 1974: 1974 NY Premiere of Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité 1975 First New York performance of Messiaen’s Complete Works for Organ 1987 NY Premiere of Livre du Saint Sacrement (from the manuscript) 1999 American and NY Premieres of three then-recently discovered pieces: Monodie Offrande au Saint Sacrement (from the manuscript) Prélude (from the manuscript) 2022 World premiere recording of Vie pour Dieu des Ressuscités (from the manuscript, unpublished)

Messiaen House in Fuligny © Malcolm Ball This is the 18th century house where Messiaen's aunts (Agnès and Marthe) lived and where he spent his summer vacations for many years from 1922 onward. Here he notated his first bird songs (later saying in his view the Aube region was the best location in France for larks) and composed, among others, Preludes for piano, Le Banquet Céleste , Le Banquet Eucharistique , Les Offrandes Oubliées , Le Tombeau Resplendissant and possibly Diptyque and Trois Mélodies as well as many more sketches that would find themselves in later works. Messiaen continued to visit his aunts in this house throughout his life. The current owner has decided to sell this house and the couple who wish to buy it intend to demolish it in view of the costs for its restoration. The Association LA QUALITE DE VIE reacted immediately, and is doing everything possible to have this "house of character" become an historical monument. The idea is to have this house bought by those who are interested in the world of BIRDS, in HERITAGE, in CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, in the ORGAN, in Olivier MESSIAEN... A FOUNDATION LE CHANT DES OISEAUX DE FULIGNY will make this place a concentration of Culture : "the grown-ups" and "the school children" will be able to learn and recognise the birds, their song, their life... One can imagine a specialised media library... and in a small auditorium one can listen to all the music and songs of the bird world... And maybe a care centre for injured birds and animals... © Thomas Bloch © Malcolm Ball Olivier's father, Pierre Messiaen (1883-1957) was born in Flanders - *one of Charles and Marie Messiaen's seven children (three brothers: Pierre, Léon and Paul; and four sisters: Marthe, Madeleine, Marie and Agnès). In 1900, the Messiaen family moved to Fuligny, in the Aube region, east of Troyes. Among the Messiaen children, one of the most artistically gifted was Léon, born 1884, a graduate of the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts; he was at the start of a promising career as a sculpture when killed in action in 1918. The Messiaen family tomb, in the churchyard of La Chaise near Fuligny, is surmounted by a striking sculpture after Léon Messiaen entitled L'Énergie fauchée ('Energy spent')*. Léon reworked the sculpture a copy of which can be seen close to the cathedral in Troyes that commemorates the one hundredth anniversary of the 1914-18 war. *Peter Hill & Nigel Simeone - MESSIAEN pp. 7-8 © Malcolm Ball © Malcolm Ball © Malcolm Ball Léon Messiaen Madeleine was the longest-lived of the seven children (b.1890) and married Paul Guéritte in 1912 and died in 1987. CALL FOR DONATIONS for the safeguarding of LA MAISON DES MESSIAEN in Fuligny (in Aube, in Champagne). Please make a payment to the LA QUALITE DE VIE Association. To make the treasurer's task easier: please choose bank transfer or Paypal. To make a transfer click on this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1m9Pkc3PEOClwaQxpk1xBtYk6eCx6UQIFCwQgCUSpQtE/edit Its Board of Directors will be responsible for making it a concentration of Culture: "adults" and "school children" will be able to learn to recognize birds, their song, their life... (visits organized by the Establishments schools and Associations for the elderly are more and more numerous: Heritage and Culture) - This place will fit perfectly into the North-East Aube circuit: From Gaulle to Colombey-les-deux-Eglises, Napoléon to Brienne, Bachelard in Bar-sur-Aube, Voltaire in Cirey-sur-Blaise, without forgetting the Champagne Route. Regularly, those responsible for tourism in the North-East Aubois complain about the lack of attractiveness of this territory where France's radioactive waste storage centers are located. The current residence will be restored and protected. An Aube company specializing in the renovation of old buildings is in the process of providing a quote. Furthermore, we imagine the construction of three small wooden buildings, using the A-shaped house technique: see this example: https://www.boisdesalpes.net/batiment.php?noIDB=11 - a small library, - a specialized media library, - a small auditorium with around sixty seats (the capacity of a school bus) with a large bay window facing the meadow, where you can listen to all the music and songs from the world of birds, with juke-box type equipment , - a care center for injured birds and animals, - etc. ​ All the details are in the draft Statutes which can be consulted by clicking on this link: https://www.villesurterre.eu/images/2021/Fonds-de-dotation-231117-Statuts-LA-MAISON-DES-MESSIAEN-FULIGNY-V13.pdf For organ lovers, there is another way to make a donation of 25 euros! On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Olivier Messiaen, the Forlane label, in co-production with the quantum label, and under the artistic direction of Pascal Vigneron, Director of the Toul Bach Festival, and producer of the box set, has released the complete organ works of Olivier MESSIAEN. This 8-CD box set was recorded with teachers and students from major organ classes at the largest European conservatories (more than 40 participants). In order to safeguard the Maison des MESSIAEN in Fuligny, where he composed many of his masterpieces, the LA QUALITE DE VIE Association invites you to purchase this box set. Part of this purchase will be donated to the preservation of this historic residence. We therefore suggest that you acquire this box as follows: You make a donation to the QUALITY OF LIFE Association. You send 50 euros. In this way you will help us to preserve the Residence of the MESSIAEN. And you will be able to deduct 60% of this amount in your tax return. It’s a great deal: the complete organ works of Olivier MESSIAEN, i.e. 8 CDs for 30 euros. And to thank you, the LA QUALITE DE VIE Association will send you the Box. If you are allergic to all these computer constraints send a cheque to: LA QUALITE DE VIE Association 8 route de Soulaines 10200 VILLE-SUR-TERRE FRANCE by providing your email address on the back of the cheque. ​ Thank you for your generosity. Here are the Articles of Association of the Endowment Fund (English ) (French ) Here are the Rules and regulations of the Endowment Fund (English ) (French ) Here are Messiaen's own recollections of the house: 'My memories [of nature] go back to the age of fourteen or fifteen, chiefly to a period when I went and stayed in the Aube with aunts who owned a rather odd farm, with sculptures by one of my uncles [Léon], a flower bed, an orchard, some cows and hens. [...] To 'restore' my health, my brave aunts would send me out to tend a little herd of cows; it was really a very small herd ( there were only two or three cows) but even so I looked after them very badly, and one day they managed to escape and wrought havoc in a field of beetroot which they munched through in a few hours. I was told off by everyone in the village. The Aube countryside is very beautiful and very simple: the plain, its big fields surrounded by trees, magnificent dawns and sunsets, and a great many birds. It was there that I first began noting down birdsong'. Samuel 1967 pp.24-5; Samuel 1986, pp34-5. Peter Hill & Nigel Simeone - MESSIAEN pp.8 © Thomas Bloch © Thomas Bloch © Thomas Bloch © Thomas Bloch Watch video of the house and listen to the birds! Here

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. 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 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 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. 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. Pyrz 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. Back to top

Please help us crowdfund new project: Messiaen 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! Please help us Crowdfund! We need to crowdfund £40,000 to make this set of films. Please prebuy this multi-disc boxset from Fugue State Films . You can do this at various levels: Gold Patron (£2000) Patron (£950) Educational (one course) (£600) Screener or Library (£300) Gold Recognised Subscriber (£195) Recognised Subscriber (£99) All options are available in our webshop, though if you want to support at one of the higher options, you can also email Will Fraser to arrange payment in a way that involves less expensive Paypal / transaction and exchange fees. The UK is going through what is hopefully a short-term economic crisis, and if you live abroad now is a great time to pay for this project as the pound is so low against every other currency. All supporters at these levels will be credited in the film and booklet. Please note – we are now offering two levels of Recognised Subscriber. As well as the ‘gold’ one, more or less analogous to what we have offered up to this point, there’s now also a £99 option. At the moment we are just accepting support at these levels, but soon we shall also offer the normal discounted prebuy: Early-bird Discount: Subscribe to Messiaen DVD Boxset (£35) – Available Soon ​ ​ All supporters will receive the multi-disc boxset when it is released in 2023. Your generosity will allow us to make this set of films. Please prebuy now! For this set of DVDs we will explore the form, style and language of Messiaen’s organ music, showing the extraordinary range and expressive depth of this composer’s work. We shall ask many questions, but one of them will certainly be: Is Messiaen the greatest organ composer since Bach? Please help us crowdfund!