biography
| name: |
Messiaen, Olivier (Eugène Prosper Charles)
|
pronunciation:
[mesiã]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1908–92)
|
| biography:
| Composer and organist, born in Avignon, SE France. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included Paul Dukas. He became professor at the Schola Cantorum (1936–9) and (after a period of war-time imprisonment) professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire in 1941. He composed extensively for organ, orchestra, voice, and piano, and made frequent use of new instruments. His music was motivated by religious mysticism, and he is best known for Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus (1944, Twenty Looks at the Infant Jesus), and the mammoth Turangalila symphony. His great interest in birdsong proved the stimulus for several works, including the Catalogue d'oiseaux for piano (1956–8). |
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