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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2023
The career of any great artist can be divided into broad creative periods denned by discernible traits. Olivier Messiaen is no exception, despte the fact that, when discussing his music, it is now part of the common currency to remark upon the constancy with which he stuck to his idiosyncratic musical language. It is true that some of the techniques and spirit which he used in the first of his works to be published, the Préludes, can still be heard in his final masterpiece Éclairs sur I'au-delà…. Indeed, Messiaen himself encouraged this perception, so that the received wisdom is of the composer as a steady accumulator of techniques for a continually expanding style. On one level, therefore, this is a reasonably accurate interpretation in retrospect of Messiaen's career. However, within this broad quality of consistency, it is possible to detect places where the composer markedly changes direction.
1 Boulez, Pierre in an interview shown as part of ‘Messiaen at 80’: programme broadcast by BBC2 on 10 12 1988 Google Scholar.
2 ibid.
3 Messiaen, Olivier: musiaue et couleur – nouveaux entretiens aver Claude Samuel, (Paris: Belfond, 1986), p.31 Google Scholar.
4 ibid., p.158.
5 Ibid. (‘For a long time, Latin was considered the classical language in secondary education; today it's gradually being abandoned in favour [sic] of sciences maths and modern languages…. I wanted to renew the tradition, but also to prove that the Latin texts are very beautiful and that their unintelligibility adds to their mystery. The statue remains on its pedestal.’)
6 He had previously composed a short motet, O sacrum convivium!
7 Aside from the quotation by François of the Apostle Thomas (‘Mon Seigneur et mon Dieu’) in Les Stigmates from Saint François d'Assise.
