Olivier Messiaen
b. Avignon, December 10, 1908
d. Paris, April 27, 1992
Biography
From his birth, French composer Olivier Messiaen was surrounded by the arts.
When he was only eleven years old he entered the Paris Conservatory,
studying organ with Marcel Dupré and composition with Paul Dukas. He took
first prize in both areas, as well as in improvisation. In 1930 he became
the organist at Trinity church, Paris. He joined the faculty of his alma
mater, the Paris Conservatory in 1942. Throughout the rest of his life he
worked at various music centers around the world including Tanglewood, 1948,
and Darmustadt, 1950-1953. It was through such institutions that Messiaen's
unique style influenced many students, including Karlheinz Stockhausen and
Pierre Boulez.
Messiaen was very religious and his music, both organ and other, reflects
his extreme faithbordering on mysticism. He used musical resources from
many traditions, ranging from rhythms of the orient to early Christian
Gregorian Chant to birdsong. His pieces achieve unity through his careful
interdependence of melodies, rhythms, and harmonies.
Points of Interest
- Messiaen served in the French army during World War II (1939). He was a
prisoner for two years in a German prison camp in Silesca, where he composed
his Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time).
- He was an elected member of many organizations, ranging from the Bavarian
Academy of Fine Arts, to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
- Messiaen wrote the two-volume work The Technique of My Musical Language in
1957.
- He married one of his students, the pianist Yvonne Loriod.
Works
- La Nativité du Seigneur
- Le Corps glorieux
- Messe de la Pentecôte
- Livre d'orgue
- L'Ascension
- Meditations sur le mystére de la Sainte Trinite