Messiaen’s creative personality and influence as a teacher were fundamental to the development of new music in Europe after 1945. He was Debussy’s natural successor, taking the French master’s innovative approach to harmony and rhythm to a new plane, while sharing his openness to the music of other cultures. Although by the late 1940s the main elements of Messiaen’s harmonic language were already in place, he continued to develop as a ‘rythmicien’, creating an influential synthesis derived from Hindu and classical Greek poetic metre and Western models, particularly Stravinsky. Birdsong, collected from all corners of the planet, came to occupy a central role, starting with the almost literal transcriptions of Réveil des oiseaux (‘Awakening of the Birds’, 1953) but quickly developing a more orchestral range in Oiseaux exotiques (‘Exotic Birds’, 1955–56). The brightly coloured plumages evoked in the bird pieces coexisted with his belief that chord sequences could directly describe the sensation of colour, expressed in works such as Couleurs de la cité céleste (‘Colours of the Heavenly City’, 1963), where the colours represented are listed in the score. While many of his pupils might regard these ideas as eccentric, the influence of Messiaen’s teaching remained vast, with eminent students including Boulez, Stockhausen and Barraqué.

Styles & Forms | Contemporary | Classical
Influences | Eastern Influences | Contemporary | Classical