I was a 10 year old chorister at St Margaret's, Westminster back in the 60s when we had a wedding at the church: a very rare occasion compared to my previous church where we'd generallyhave two or three each Saturday.

The usual voluntary at the end of service as the bride and groom went trolling out of the church was generally the usual schtick of Mendelssohn's Wedding March, the Grand March from Aida or, if you were lucky, Widor's Toccata from the 5th Symphony.

On this occasion, however, the happy couple had chosen Dieu Parmi Nous (the section from the reprise of the God theme into the toccata). As was usual, and as the bride and groom were proceeding down the aisle, we would gather up our music music folders and proceed out of the choir stalls and go down the chancel back to the vestry. Halfway down the chancel, the organ sprang to life with the opening chords: to this day I can still vividly remember the intense shivers that ran down my spine at this extraordinary sound. Totally transfixed, I ended up at the door of the vestry and pressed myself against the door frame, letting my compadres past, the better to hear this astonishing music.

I particularly remember the frisson of excitement with the way the final Emaj6 chord resolved with the organ pedal descending from G to Gb to F, which provoked a serious dissonance, before resolving into the pedal E, at which point the air in the church seemed to shimmer.

Via our choirmaster, I then discovered that Messiaen's recording of his latest work Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité was coming out, so I promptly ordered it. Also, I found out that Gillian Weir was going to do the first UK performance of the work at the Festival Hall. My mother (bless her heart) bought me a ticket, so there was I—front row centre—at one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.

Thus my lifelong love of the maestro began.

I do, however, have an issue with many of the recordings of his organ works. Too often I hear the reverberation inherent in the recording venue cloud the music to the point where individual notes are hard to distinguish. Compare and contrast with the original recording of Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité which is a model of clarity. This recording is one of the first instances of Soundfield recording and to my mind is still an exemplar of the technology. The fact that Messiaen himself is performing is the icing on the cake.

Good evening!

I was just listening to an analysis about O Sacrum Convivium on YouTube, as you do, and was intrigued by the snapshot that shows up at 0:45. It's a list of Messiaen's early output with works classified in terms of importance, apparently by the composer himself. The citation card at the bottom says that the list belongs to a publication from 1966, but doesn't seem to include the name of the text itself.

Since I know that there are very educated people on books surrounding all things Messiaen I was wondering if someone could tell me the name of this writing and it's availability, as it has really peaked my interest.

Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Gv2U0Jf3Y

Catalogue of the Birds for Piano

The musical composition of the Catalogue of the Birds was commenced in October 1956 and terminated on 1 September 1958. The repeated excursions and trips, necessary for the notation of the songs of each bird, sometimes dated long before the formation of the pieces. His indications being very precise, the author was able to easily recall of memories that were a few hours or several years old. The work is dedicated by him twice: to his winged muses, and to pianist Yvonne LORIOD.

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The Sainte Chapelle (Holy Chapel) in Paris

I have always loved colour. Throughout my childhood, I had constructed sets and scenes for my own miniature theatre, whose stage-backgrounds were fashioned of lurid cellophane and inked in a vast variance of sorts of hues. These were laid by a window, and radiant sunlight pierced through these fine, pristine veils and iridescently illuminated my cosy little bedroom; transfiguring it with enlivened reflections and images. Around my tenth year, I had visited, for the first time of many so far, the Holy Chapel in Paris; whose stained-glass has but now been perpetually engrained within the depths of my spirit, reduced me to a sea of tears, and resonated with me for the whole of my life. On note, I have always profoundly adored those present at the Cathedral in Bourges, their reds and blues extraordinarily resplendent; but none to me shall ever exceed the glory of that most sacred Holy Chapel, practically made entirely of glass.

Onto the age of twenty-three, I had then acquainted myself with a Swiss painter by the name of Charles Blanc-Gatti. He had himself a peculiar condition called chromesthesia (a variant of synæsthesia relating to sound-to-colour) of which disfigured his nerves, optical and auditorial; which enabled him to physically see colours whenever he heard sounds. Indeed, these were literally through his eyes, and these visuals were superposed by his brain over his ambience and setting. For instance, when he had painted a pipe organ, each of its ranks refracted with swelling haloes in but a plentitude of ilks of shades: and as per when the instrument played and construed such complexities and waves of sounds; he carefully discerned them, gazed towards the organ, and finally, visually superimposed an infinity of kaleidoscopic shapes and spheres towards his perception of the instrument: He then interpreted, within art, exactly as he had envisioned. These episodes invoked deep ruminations within myself—culminating in me stumbling upon the epiphany that I, as well, could interpret the colours of sounds, though intellectually, and not visually. Thus, ever since, whenever I listen to music whether aurally or internally (for example, reading a score), I look, using my head and heart, at each of these amalgams of colours that dance and fly along with all these architectures of sound.

— Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

Personally, I'd either nominate the Sept haïkaï or Les corps glorieux; to this could potentially be added Couleurs de la Cité celeste.

Especially regarding the latter, has anyone heard Jon Gillock's incredible recording at La Sainte Trinité on Jade?

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Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (10 December 1908 — 27 April 1992)

“My faith is the grand drama of my life. I am a believer, so I preach words of God to those who have no faith, sing birdsong to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, chant rhythms for those who only know marches or jazz, and paint colours for those who see none.”

Who was Olivier Messiaen? What could be said about him? Simply too much to condense into a couple of paragraphs - he was an artist, a poet, who found solace in the laboratory that is nature, who listened to the birds, who evoked the human condition, the perspectives of the world above and beyond... but overall, he was a man who was a painter. However, the quill was his brush and the sheets were his canvas. Colour, time, and rhythm are something, although initially not easily discernible to some, that prevalently feature in the work of the composer. Must we forget as well his fascinations with the east, with birds, with things that are, as he said, "beautiful"?

Was it not that his works were among the most uniquely original of the century? That it was so rich and thorough, "so infinitely complex yet so infinitely simple", and the fruit of utter and objective genius? There are those who can and can't understand Messiaen. Those who don't have their opinions, but to those who do - the world he has created is one of the most sublime pleasures the ear can taste. He, so amazingly idiosyncratic, remains beyond all doubt the most renowned French composer of the second half of the 20th century and one of the greatest who ever lived.

- u/organist1999

This subreddit is not affiliated with the Fondation Olivier Messiaen, the Festival Messiaen, the Messiaen-Delbos-Loriod Family and Estate, Malcolm Ball, Roger Muraro, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Conservatoire de Paris, and neither is it with the Durand-Salabert-Eschig, Faber, Leduc, Lemoine, and Universal-Edition publishing houses.

I'd love to get any available info on when and credits of this photo but for time being god im just going to obsess over how attractive he was!

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