Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 1992)

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen, full name Olivier Eugène Charles Prosper Messiaen, was a French composer, music theorist, and teacher.

At the age of seven Olivier taught himself to play the piano, at the age of 11 he entered the Paris Conservatory, where his teachers were organist Marcel Dupré and composer Paul Duca. At the conservatory, Messiaen also began to study Eastern rhythms, the peculiarities of birdsong and microtonal music, which uses intervals of less than a semitone. All of this knowledge he innovatively utilized later in his compositions.

In 1931 Messiaen was appointed organist at the church of St. Trinité in Paris. In 1936 he co-founded La Jeune France ("Young France"), a group whose aim was to promote new French music. During these same years and until the outbreak of war, he taught.

As a soldier in the French army, he was taken prisoner by the Nazis, but even in the camp he managed to compose music, he even organized concerts for the exhausted fellow prisoners. After his release from captivity in 1942, Messiaen resumed his work at St. Trinité and later taught at the Paris Conservatoire. His students include dozens of future celebrated musicians, performers and composers.

Much of Messiaen's music was inspired by Roman Catholic theology, and the composer interpreted mystical and religious themes in his own manner. He developed his own style, characterized by rhythmic complexity, rich tonal color and a unique harmonic language. Olivier Messiaen is the author of the monumental opera St. Francis of Assisi (1983), and has toured the world as an organist and pianist, performer of his own works and brilliant improviser.