Messiaen's Musical Language on the Holy Child
Messiaen's Musical Language on the Holy Child

Author: Cagdas Soylar

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 61

ISBN-13: 1532664168

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Olivier Messiaen was a prominent twentieth-century French composer. His musical language includes highly complicated concepts derived from a variety of sources. Hindu rhythms, Greek rhythms, and bird calls influenced him deeply; his Catholic faith, however, had the greatest impact on his compositions. I provide a detailed analysis of two religiously motivated pieces from his Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (Twenty Gazes upon the Infant Jesus), one of the most remarkable solo piano works of the twentieth-century, to explore how he integrates the Christian theology into his musical language. Je dors, mais mon cœur veille (I sleep but my heart waketh) is a dialogue that represents Messiaen’s mystic love of God, whereas Regard des Anges (Gaze of the Angels) is a celebration symbolizing the angels beholding the birth of Jesus Christ. I explain how the entirely different subjects of the two pieces are articulated in the change of pitch collections and rhythmic structures, as well as how the changes of musical language through the use of the different pitch collections generate the formal structure that is related to the biblical source.

Messiaen’s Musical Language on the Holy Child
Messiaen’s Musical Language on the Holy Child

Author: Cagdas Soylar

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 45

ISBN-13: 1532664184

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Olivier Messiaen was a prominent twentieth-century French composer. His musical language includes highly complicated concepts derived from a variety of sources. Hindu rhythms, Greek rhythms, and bird calls influenced him deeply; his Catholic faith, however, had the greatest impact on his compositions. I provide a detailed analysis of two religiously motivated pieces from his Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus (Twenty Gazes upon the Infant Jesus), one of the most remarkable solo piano works of the twentieth-century, to explore how he integrates the Christian theology into his musical language. Je dors, mais mon cœur veille (I sleep but my heart waketh) is a dialogue that represents Messiaen's mystic love of God, whereas Regard des Anges (Gaze of the Angels) is a celebration symbolizing the angels beholding the birth of Jesus Christ. I explain how the entirely different subjects of the two pieces are articulated in the change of pitch collections and rhythmic structures, as well as how the changes of musical language through the use of the different pitch collections generate the formal structure that is related to the biblical source.

The Reinvention of Religious Music
The Reinvention of Religious Music

Author: Sander van Maas

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2009-08-25

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0823230597

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On the basis of a careful analysis of Olivier Messiaen's work, this book argues for a renewal of our thinking about religious music. Addressing his notion of a "hyper-religious" music of sounds and colors, it aims to show that Messiaen has broken new ground. His reinvention of religious music makes us again aware of the fact that religious music, if taken in its proper radical sense, belongs to the foremost of musical adventures. The work of Olivier Messiaen is well known for its inclusion of religious themes and gestures. These alone, however, do not seem enough to account for the religious status of the work. Arguing for a "breakthrough toward the beyond" on the basis of the synaesthetic experience of music, Messiaen invites a confrontation with contemporary theologians and post-secular thinkers. How to account for a religious breakthrough that is produced by a work of art? Starting from an analysis of his 1960s oratorio La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ, this book arranges a moderated dialogue between Messiaen and the music theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the phenomenology of revelation of Jean-Luc Marion, the rethinking of religion and technics in Jacques Derrida and Bernard Stiegler, and the Augustinian ruminations of Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-François Lyotard. Ultimately, this confrontation underscores the challenging yet deeply affirmative nature of Messiaen's music.

Messiaen's Final Works
Messiaen's Final Works

Author: Christopher Dingle

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1351558420

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When Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) completed the vast opera Saint Fran?s d?Assise in 1983, he was mentally and physically exhausted, and believed that this monumental work would be his final compositional statement. In fact, he completed seven further works, and these form the focus of the present study. Christopher Dingle suggests that, following the crisis provoked by the opera, Messiaen's music underwent a discernible change in style. He examines these seven works to identify characteristics of the composer's music, in particular an often overlooked aspect of his technique: harmony. Part I of the book begins with a brief historical survey before discussing Saint Fran?s d?Assise as the work which defines everything that follows. Part II examines the series of miniatures that came after the opera and their links with ?lairs sur l?Au-Del?., his final masterpiece. ?lairs forms the subject of Part III of the book. Each movement is analysed in turn, before the work is considered as a whole and its hidden structure and motivic cohesion is revealed. Finally, Part IV considers the incomplete Concert ? and key stylistic features of the works of Messiaen?s final years.

ThirdWay
ThirdWay

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1978-12

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13:

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Monthly current affairs magazine from a Christian perspective with a focus on politics, society, economics and culture.

A Guide to 20th-century Composers
A Guide to 20th-century Composers

Author: Mark Morris

Publisher: London : Methuen

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 598

ISBN-13:

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Geographically arranged, with the composers listed alphabetically. Covers music composed since 1918. 960 p.

Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'oiseaux
Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'oiseaux

Author: Roderick Chadwick

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1107000319

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This book charts Messiaen's transformation of birdsong into music and its development into a major work of the twentieth century.

The Messiaen Companion
The Messiaen Companion

Author: Russell Hoban

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Published: 2011-11-17

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 0571281044

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Re-issued to coincide with the centenary of Messiaen's birth, The Messiaen Companion was the first major study to appear after the composer's death in April 1992. It was the first book to offer both a complete survey of Messiaen's extraordinary achievements and a comprehensive guide to his music, also examining in detail the enduring inspiration which Messiaen derived from his religious faith and from his lifelong passion for ornithology and the natural world. The contributors, all of whom have made a special study of the composer, include two biographers of Messiaen and a number of the foremost interpreters of his music. Messiaen's influential teaching is recalled in essays by three of his pupils (Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, and Peter Hill), and the composer is also remembered in a remarkable and moving contribution from his widow and devoted musical companion, the pianist Yvonne Loriod.