Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) was the most original musical mind of 20th-century France — a devout Catholic mystic who found the same ecstasy in birdsong, Hindu rhythms, ancient Greek modes, and the colors he heard when music played. He had synesthesia: sounds triggered specific colors and color-combinations for him, and he used this as a compositional tool, writing music he described in terms of blues and oranges and gold. This is not metaphor — he was describing his perceptual experience.

His most famous work was written in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. The Quartet for the End of Time (1941) premiered in Stalag VIII-A in January 1941, in freezing cold, before an audience of prisoners and guards, performed by four inmates on broken instruments. It is one of the most extraordinary pieces of the 20th century — eight movements of visionary music describing the end of time as written in the Book of Revelation, composed under conditions that had already shattered most people.

He taught at the Paris Conservatoire for decades and his students included Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis — essentially the entire post-war European avant-garde passed through his class. His Turangalîla-Symphonie (1949) is a massive, ecstatic work for large orchestra and ondes Martenot — 80 minutes of love, mysticism, and joy that is impossible to categorize. The Catalogue d’oiseaux for solo piano is exactly what it sounds like: a catalog of French birdsongs, transcribed with scholarly precision and transformed into something beautiful.

StyleCatholic mysticism, birdsong transcription, synthetic modes and non-Western rhythmic cells. Colors, always colors. Music as transcendence.

Listen: Quartet for the End of Time (Tashi Quartet recording). Then the Turangalîla-Symphonie. Then the solo piano piece Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus — three hours of Christmas mysticism.