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Olivier Messiaen is often portrayed as a devout Catholic, a passionate ornithologist, a colorist with synesthesia. His fascination with medieval and Indian rhythmic modes, non-retrogradable rhythms, and modes of limited transposition are well-documented. Yet, much of this narrative originates from the composer himself. As Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone observed in 2005, “More than a decade after his death, our understanding [of Messiaen] remains largely shaped by his own self-portrayals.”1
Messiaen stands as a pivotal figure straddling tradition and modernity, bridging the past and future. He was both a member of “Jeune France,” the pre-war collective that included André Jolivet, and a steadfast “vieille France” Catholic. This duality allowed him to compose works like Livre d’orgue (1951) — a serial piece that exudes the aurore of an ancient, mysterious grimoire, even at the dawn of the Trente Glorieuses.
Despite public skepticism toward contemporary music,2 Messiaen’s compositions resonated with a broad audience, even across the Atlantic, perhaps due to his distinguished role as a teacher.3 From 1941 to 1978, he taught harmony, analysis, and eventually composition at the Paris Conservatoire. His professorial sensibility infused his own compositions, which often resemble lessons in modernism, pre-analyzed and distilled to what Michel Chion described as “skeletons.”4
This skeletal clarity is rooted in rhythmic congruence. More than any other post-war composer, Messiaen favored homorhythm, or “monorhythm,” employing one rhythm at a time. This results in a verticality, a “chorale” style evident in both orchestral and solo works, and creates a limpid sound: the “crystal,” as it has been called.5 Messiaen’s monorhythm presents “a single voice” — perhaps that of the Father, beloved by Messiaen the devout Catholic, or the bird, cherished by Messiaen the ornithologist.
Such univocality was rare among his peers, who mostly embraced polyphonic textures. One reference for verticality, however, was Stravinsky, whom Messiaen admired and who used homorhythm in his ostinati and repetitions — most notably in the famous chord from The Rite of Spring (1913). However, Messiaen’s homorhythmic passages are often slower, as in long choral sections, or, conversely, swifter, in his nimble, solo “bird style.” Despite their shared clarity, Messiaen’s treatment of time integrates and reframes Stravinsky’s, achieving a unique subtlety.
From the 1950s onward, at least half of the temporal unfolding of his works is carried out monorhythmically. Homorhythm is evident from the first 26 measures of O sacrum convivium (1937), composed at age 29. Half a century later, Éclairs sur l’au-delà (1988-1991), written in his eighties, begins and ends with these vertical edifices, as does the unfinished Concert à quatre from 1990. The final section of Éclairs sur l’au-delà, “Le Christ, lumière du paradis,” and the last 61 measures of Un sourire (1989) epitomize this vertical structure.
Between these periods of youth and maturity, passages of Couleurs de la cité celeste (1963) and almost the entire first part of Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1964) use this approach. The central motif of St. Francis of Assisi, throughout the four-hour eponymous opera (1975-1983), is accompanied by chords, one per syllable. Similarly, the choirs in La Transfiguration de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (1965-1969) move in a slow procession of chords doubled by the orchestra, notably during ten long minutes in the finale.
Long passages in unisons and octaves appear frequently, offering diamond-like simplicity. Outside of Gregorian chant, when has any well-known composer ever ventured something so simple? These moments often appear at the ends of movements, such as in the second “septenary” of La Transfiguration, or at the beginning. Examples include “Two Warriors” from Poèmes pour Mi (1936), the second and fifth movements of Visions de l’Amen (1943), the second movement of Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine (1943-1944), the fourth movement of Cinq rechants (1948), “Regard de l’Esprit de joie” (the tenth movement of Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus, 1944), Act II of Saint François d’Assise, and seven of the nine movements of Méditations sur le mystère de la sainte Trinité (1969).
The entire sixth movement of the Quartet for the End of Time consists of pure, simple unisons. The work has achieved considerable fame, even inspiring a book dedicated to it.6 Its popularity likely stems from its sparse instrumentation, evocative and apocalyptic title, and the powerful backstory of its creation at Stalag VIII-A, a German camp where Messiaen was prisoner No. 35333. However, the transparent clarity of the sixth movement also contributes to its enduring appeal. Similarly, the sixth section of Éclairs sur l’au-delà, “Les sept anges aux sept trompettes,” would be entirely in unison if not for the noisy counterpoint of a few percussion instruments.
Unisons appear sporadically even in Messiaen’s pre-war works, where Debussy’s more rhythmically agitated influence is evident, such as the beginning of the final movement of L’Ascension (1932-1934) and the central tutti of the second of the Trois petites liturgies. In these moments, Messiaen clarifies the style of Debussy, the well-known colorist with whom he shared a sense of synesthesia. After the 1950s, the crystal shines brighter, the fine cuts becoming surgically precise. This is achieved through the drier timbre of Messiaen’s ascetic period from 1950 to 1965, during which he stopped using strings, as seen in the orchestration of Couleurs de la Cité celeste (1964) and added reinforced percussion. The percussion creates not expressionist clamor, but an articulate and precise pointillism, promoted by the integral serialist aesthetic of Darmstadt. This distinct use of percussion, typical of post-war European avant-gardes, is also present in Boulez’s emblematic Le Marteau sans maître (1954), which uses maracas, vibraphone, xylophone, and marimba; but in Messiaen’s hands, these instruments construct a gleaming edifice made of flawless wooden monorhythms and brilliant metal structures.
The 1950s also ushered in Messiaen’s bird style, introducing a fresh take on pianistic virtuosity. This style often featured strict synchronization, with both hands playing exactly an octave apart, as demonstrated in Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956-1958). This work has a catalogue structure, presenting one bird species at a time. The seventh book, beginning with the Buse variable (common buzzard) (part XI), is strictly homorhythmic and fast for the first 31 measures and largely remains this texture until the end. The piano, which Messiaen integrated into most of his major post-war orchestral works — especially around the 1970s — stands alone, performing entire pages of ornithological monorhythms. These quasi-piano concertos were often premiered by — and possibly composed for — Messiaen’s second wife, Yvonne Loriod.
Messiaen’s “poly-ornithological” (and thus polyphonic) style of tutti birdsong is exemplified not by the piano but by the orchestra. This technique allows various orchestral instruments to interweave in birdsong, culminating in the daring “Êpode” from Chronochromie (1959-1960), where the strings mimic birds’ breathless chirping. Boulez praised this section as “adventurous in the extreme.”7
Eventually, Messiaen used the marimba–xylophone combination to replace the “imprecise attacks” of the strings with a more “wild” and powerful wooden sound, perfectly suited to his ornithological style. This combination becomes central to the orchestra in Sept Haïkaï (1962), where it embodies the micra varna and the sanköchö at the beginning of “Oiseaux de Karuizawa.” It remains prominent in Couleurs de la cité celeste, La Transfiguration, Des Canyons aux étoiles, and the sermon to the birds in Saint François d’Assise. In Éclairs sur l’au-delà, it represents the lyrebird, the composer’s final muse.
What would Messiaen have become after the war, were it not for his “little servants of immaterial joy”?8 Birdsong motifs seem indispensable for many modern works, acting as cheerful ambassadors of modernity in Messiaen’s music and beyond. Their repetitive trills suggest Stravinsky’s ostinati, their dissonances validate Schoenberg, and their clamor nods to Varèse’s sound clusters. Their freedom resonates with the open, improvisational forms of Cage and Stockhausen. Birdsong seem to announce that contemporary music belongs in the meadows and forests: that it is only natural.
Messiaen found his way to a kind of classical ecology in the tradition of Rousseau, far removed from the scientific approaches of his colleagues. While his peers explored new technological frontiers, Messiaen largely avoided electroacoustic techniques, except in Timbres-durées (1953). Birds instead inspired changes in his orchestration, culminating in the aforementioned “Sermon to the Birds,” where even the ondes Martenot takes on avian qualities, mimicking a whipbird from distant jungles. In the opening of “Oiseaux de Karuizawa,” the uguisu is represented by a synchronized battery of wood and trumpet, showcasing his inventive orchestration.
Elsewhere Messiaen’s orchestration remains steeped in archetypal and symbolic tradition, with bells and triangle rolls in the conclusion of Saint François, echoing popular nineteenth-century clichés; the Ravel-inspired wind machine (éoliphone) lending a post-impressionist quality in Des Canyons aux étoiles; and lush, romantic strings symbolizing love in the Turangalîla-Symphonie.
Strings hold a significant place in Messiaen’s work, especially before 1950 and after 1965. They seem romantic by virtue of their pleasant timbre in “Jardin du sommeil d’amour” (the sixth movement of Turangalîla-Symphonie), the bows drawn slowly across the string to create a languorous resonance.
In this celebrated symphony, the ondes Martenot surfaces as a soloist by bar 5 of the second movement, “Chant d’amour 1.” This marks a shift from its use in earlier works such as Fête des belles eaux (1937), for six ondes, and Trois petites liturgies. By Turangalîla in 1948, Messiaen had fully embraced the smooth, hypnotic sound of the ondes Martenot’s ribbon. He modernized the nineteenth-century orchestra’s echo effect, expanding the romantic night into a futuristic cosmos — a fitting move for a composer interested in astronomy, as Yvette Grimaud points out.9
In the 1950s and 1960s, Messiaen’s orchestral output declined, even as his bird style blossomed. During this time, the “elongated” strings of his earlier compositions vanished, only resurfacing in 1965 with La Transfiguration. Their absence is particularly notable in works like Couleurs de la cité celeste and Et exspecto…. Even after they return, the strings never regain their former “leading role,” except at the very end, in Éclairs sur l’au-delà. This work, the swan song begun in 1988 and serving as a summation of his entire career, reflects on the postmodern climate of the Reagan era without being postmodern itself. In its fifth movement, “Demeurer dans l’amour,” Messiaen’s idea of “dwelling in love” is made manifest through the writing for strings.
The effect of suspended time — associated with the promise of paradise — is longstanding throughout Messiaen’s work. This element more often represented Christ and his tenderness than the Father, whose presence is suggested by brass. For example, L’Ascension concludes with a slow, eschatological passage filled with “long sobs from the violins,” which convey ecstasy rather than sorrow. Sherlaw Johnson notes that even in the 1930s, immobility was an ingredient in Messiaen’s harmonic language.10
The Quatuor pour la fin du temps also ends, as its title suggests, in eternal lassitude, with “Praise to the Immortality of Jesus,” a movement for violin and piano alone that serves as an act of purification. Likewise, the final movement of Éclairs privileges the strings; since it is the last movement Messiaen completed in 1991, the languor of the violins seems to have ultimately prevailed.
These lush strings, emblematic of Messiaen’s pious image and evident in the finale of L’Ascension, played a significant role in endearing him to American audiences when it was performed there in 1947, securing the international renown that followed.
Like De Gaulle, Messiaen emerged victorious from World War II. Messiaen’s renown is indeed curious, as his most celebrated works are his “wartime pieces”: Quartet for the End of Time (1940-1941), hailed as a “masterpiece of twentieth-century chamber music”11; Trois petites liturgies (1943-1944); and Vingt regards (1944), followed closely by Turangalîla (1946-1948). Was this output the result of the severe yet fruitful isolation imposed by the war or the renewed passion12 sparked by his appointment at the Conservatoire in March 1941?
Before 1939, Messiaen was primarily known as an organ composer, eventually regarded as “the most influential composer for the organ in the twentieth century.”13 However, his worldwide fame took off after his success in America. In 1948, a journalist from France Soir informed him,
Your reputation in the United States (only rivaled by Milhaud’s) has spread like wildfire since the Liberation. Early reports from American journalists about liberated Paris assured readers that the Eiffel Tower was intact, Picasso was painting three-eyed women, and a new composer had emerged: Olivier Messiaen.14
L’Ascension, described as the “culmination of the composer’s early period”15, represents Christ’s ascent to heaven as well as Messiaen’s own rise. Under Koussevitzky’s baton, it was performed to great acclaim at Tanglewood (Massachusetts) in 1947 before 15,000 listeners, and led to the commission and premiere of Turangalîla in December 1949, which also found success in America.
These transatlantic triumphs paved the way for Messiaen’s entry into Japan’s cultural sphere. Critic Kuniharu Akiyama was inspired after hearing L’Ascension conducted by Stokowski on an American occupation broadcast in 1948 and after reading about the premiere of Turangalîla in a Japanese magazine. He organized national premieres of Messiaen’s work through the Jikken-Kôbô, the “experimental workshop” he founded in 1951 with Tōru Takemitsu and Joji Yuasa, then both in their twenties. They performed chamber works like the Quartet, Visions de l’Amen, and Eight Preludes (1929),16 sparking a lasting mutual interest between Messiaen and Japan.
Meanwhile, the nature of Messiaen’s success was entirely different at Darmstadt, where he contributed to the rise of integral serialism. His works from 1949 to 1951, such as Mode de valeurs et d’intensités, the Livre d’orgue, and Four Rhythmic Études, align with the ideals of the high modernist European avant-garde and mark a stark departure from the dulcet tones of Turangalîla.
The 1950s were something of a desert crossing, necessitating the refreshing arrival of the birdsong style. A pivotal state commission from André Malraux in 1963 led to Et exspecto…, a work hailed as “the most immediately accessible piece since the Turangalîla Symphonie.”17 Its premiere met with personal congratulations from De Gaulle himself.
In the early 1970s, Messiaen returned to the United States, where his international fame was first sparked. He wrote Des Canyons aux étoiles (completed in 1974) during a residency in Utah, a state so impacted by his work that a mountain there was christened “Mount Messiaen.”
What other artist can claim such an honor? François Cheng of the Académie française called Messiaen’s works “planetary” in their beauty.18 Alain Louvier and Almut Rossler celebrated his “universal spirit”19 and “universality.”20 Catherine Lechner-Reydellet regarded him as a “giant”21; Siegfried Borris the “glorious father of new music”22; and George Benjamin the “master of masters.”23 Even in his lifetime, Messiaen was considered a “classic.”24
Messiaen stands out among post-war avant-garde musicians as one of the few to achieve classic status in their own lifetime. His influence reached many contemporaries. Henri Dutilleux, only eight years his junior, adopted his modes of limited transposition as established, essential tools. Benjamin Britten similarly embraced his innovations. Takemitsu revered Messiaen alongside Debussy, venerating him as a mentor. Messiaen’s diffuse, post-impressionist treatment of strings in Des Canyons echo the Debussy-like aspects of his Trois petites liturgies, and Takemitsu may have drawn from these for his own “Takemitsu sound.”
Messiaen’s success is also a story of love. The word “love” appears in several of his movement titles, setting him apart as an unusually “lovable” modernist. The theme of “love” also recurs in musicologists’ titles or abstracts devoted to his work.25 Pierrette Mari, one of his former students, described him as possessing “candor” and “fundamental kindness.”26
Despite his radiant reputation and his ethical and ecological leanings, Messiaen’s work contains a certain violence. His mother’s surname, Sauvage (meaning “wild”), seems almost prophetic. Messiaen believed that angels’ communication was “almost frightening,” echoing Rilke. In Éclairs sur l’au-delà, the apocalyptic angels voices roar through the brass and percussion. Such is the “Amen of the Stars,” the second movement of Visions de l’Amen, which he described as “a brutal and wild dance” in which “stars, suns, and Saturn turn violently.” His final work for organ, the Livre du Saint Sacrement (1984), ends with “Offrande et alléluia final,” a culmination of crystalline homorhythms and unisons crowned at the final amen with a total-chromatic aggregate (E#-G#-B-D#-G-A-B♭-D-E-F#, with C# in the pedal). When performed well, this quasi-cluster, repeated seven times, delivers a powerful electric shock. Its vehemence evokes a “magical sound” that would have fascinated Giacinto Scelsi and roots the creative Hebrew Word “amen,” which Messiaen saw as issuing from a “superhuman language.”28
In revitalizing his Christian faith, Messiaen’s compositions, vivid and often programmatic, are not saccharine. They contrast sharply with the rationalist, twentieth-century view of a devout, “backward” Catholic who claims to play the organ well only on Sundays29 or to compose “for the angels.”30 Messiaen issued a clear warning: “I am not the joker you may think I am.”31
From 1940 until his death in 1992, Messiaen offered something even more profound than the end of the world: the end of time itself, as embodied in his Quartet for the End of Time. “The catastrophe may not be imminent, but we are approaching it,” Messiaen confided to Claude Samuel.32 Chapter 21 of the Book of Revelation haunted him, inspiring his last work, Éclairs sur l’au-delà. When inducted into the Institut in 1968, he paid homage to his predecessor Jean Lurçat, painter and ceramist, by referencing Lurçat’s Tapestry of the Apocalypse (1947).
Messiaen stands as both a sunny, jubilant musician and a harbinger of ultimate destruction. He was a mediator and a conservative, tasked with reconciling old and new sacrality, devotion to his genius and to God, to the avant-garde and the public, to diatonicism and to chromaticism (in his modes of limited transposition), and much more. In the century of Freud and Marx, Messiaen was in a world apart. His music was not liturgical but invariably religious,33 sparking a mythology of its own. One can imagine Roland Barthes or Jacques Lacan dwelling on the symbolic weight of his name — a “messiah” in an age of scientific reasoning.
1. Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone, Olivier Messiaen, New Haven, London, Yale University Press, 2005, p. 1. ↩
2. On this subject, see the disillusioned report by sociologist Pierre-Michel Menger, La condition du compositeur et le marché de la musique contemporaine (The Condition of the Composer and the Market for Contemporary Music), Paris, La Documentation Française, 1980. ↩
3. See especially Jean Boivin, La classe de Messiaen (Messiaen’s Class), Paris, Christian Bourgois, 1995. ↩
4. Michel Chion, “Le silence chez Messiaen” (“Silence in Messiaen”), in Accents, no. 34, January-March 2008, p. 26. ↩
5. Jacques Amblard, Vingt regards sur Messiaen (Twenty Perspectives on Messiaen), Aix-en-Provence, PUP, 2015, p. 129. ↩
6. Rebecca Rishin, Et Messiaen composa. 1941. Stalag Görlitz. Genèse du Quatuor pour la fin du temps (And Messiaen Composed. 1941. Stalag Görlitz. Genesis of the Quartet for the End of Time), Paris, Ramsay, 2006 (trans. Émilie Akoka and Guillaume Marlière from Messiaen Quartet, Ithaca [NY], Cornell University Press, 2003). ↩
7. Olivier Messiaen, Traité de rythme, de couleurs et d’ornithologie, tome I (Treatise on Rhythm, Color, and Ornithology, Volume I), Paris, Leduc, 1994, preface by Pierre Boulez, VI. ↩
8. Expression by Messiaen cited by Harry Halbreich, Olivier Messiaen, Paris, Fayard/Sacem, 1980, p. 87. ↩
9. Cited by Jean Boivin, “Messiaen’s Teaching at the Paris Conservatoire,” in Messiaen’s Language of Mystical Love, London/New York, Garland Publishing, 1998, p. 27. ↩
10. Robert Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen, London, Dent and Sons, 1975, p. 31. ↩
11. This is one of the theses of Jerzy Stankiewicz, in “Ile wykonań Kwartetnakoniec Czasu Oliviera Messiaenaodbyłosię w Stalagu VIII A w Gorlitz? Nowefakty i hipotezy 70 latpóźniej,” Resfacta nova: Teksty o muzycewspółczesnej, vol. 12, no. 21, 2011. ↩
12. Messiaen could have notably benefited from the esprit de corps of the Conservatoire, whose students — performers, composers, conductors — would long defend their beloved professor. On this subject, see Amblard, op. cit. (note 5), p. 59-66. ↩
13. Jon Gillock, Performing Messiaen’s Organ Music: 66 Masterclasses, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2010, beginning of the introduction. ↩
14. Robert de Saint-Jean, “C’est le merle et non le rossignol qui inspire Olivier Messiaen” (“It is the Blackbird and Not the Nightingale that Inspires Olivier Messiaen”), France Soir, no. 1138, March 28-29, 1948, p. 2. ↩
15. Op. cit. (note 10), p. 31. ↩
16. Eiko Kasaba, “Notes sur la réception de la musique de Messiaen au Japon” (“Notes on the Reception of Messiaen’s Music in Japan”), Revue internationale de musique française, no. 30, November 1989, p. 93-94. ↩
17. Pascal Arnault and Nicolas Darbon, Messiaen ou les sons impalpables du rêve (Messiaen or the Intangible Sounds of the Dream), Lillebonne, Millénaire III, 1999, p. 40-41. ↩
18. Cited by Philippe Olivier, Olivier Messiaen ou la lumière (Olivier Messiaen or the Light), Paris, Hermann, 2008, p. 180-181. ↩
19. Olivier Messiaen, Traité de rythme, de couleurs et d’ornithologie (Treatise on Rhythm, Color, and Ornithology), Volume I, Paris, Leduc, 1994, preface by Alain Louvier, VIII. ↩
20. Almut Rössler, “Über die Universalitat der Musik Olivier Messiaens (10.12.1908 - 27.4.1992): Gedanken zum Bachfest 1992 in Braunschweig” (“On the Universality of Olivier Messiaen’s Music (10.12.1908 - 27.4.1992): Thoughts on the Bach Festival 1992 in Braunschweig”), Der Kirchenmusiker, no. 43, vol. 4, 1992, p. 121-130. ↩
21. Catherine Lechner-Reydellet, Messiaen: L’empreinte d’un géant (Messiaen: The Imprint of a Giant), Biarritz, Atlantica, 2008. ↩
22. Siegfried Borris, “Olivier Messiaen: Der pater gloriosus der Neuen Musik” (“Olivier Messiaen: The Glorious Father of New Music”), Musica, no. 38, vol. 4, 1984, p. 331-335. ↩
23. George Benjamin, “Olivier Messiaen: The Master of Masters,” Le Monde de la Musique, no. 156, June 1992, p. 159-162. ↩
24. Rodion Scedrin, “Über Olivier Messiaen,” Sinn und Form, no. 40, vol. 1, 1988, p. 155. ↩
25. Siglind Bruhn (ed.), Messiaen’s Language of Mystical Love, London/New York, Garland Publishing, 1998. ↩
26. Cited by Boivin, op. cit. (note 3), p. 169. ↩
27. Cited by Andrew Shenton, “Speaking with the Tongues of Men and of Angels: Messiaen’s ‘Langage Communicable’,” in Messiaen’s Language of Mystical Love, London/New York, Garland Publishing, 1998, p. 240. ↩
28. “Texts by Olivier Messiaen on Visions de l’Amen,” BnF, microfilm, call number NLA 211, BOB31647. ↩
29. Cited by Brigitte Massin, Messiaen: Une poétique du merveilleux (Messiaen: A Poetics of the Marvellous), Paris, Alinéa, 1989, p. 66. ↩
30. Ibid., p. 114. ↩
31. Cited by Massin, op. cit. (note 29), p. 201. ↩
32. Claude Samuel, Permanences d’Olivier Messiaen: Dialogues et commentaires, Arles, Actes Sud, 1999, p. 151. ↩
33. Cited by Halbreich, op. cit. (note 8), p. 56. ↩
Version retravaillée du texte original de 2008.
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