La Fauvette des jardins is a work for piano by the French composer Olivier Messiaen, written in 1970. The piece is based principally on the song of the garden warbler, the French name of which is the title of the composition, but features eighteen other birds. The imagined setting of the piece is the Dauphiny mountains of Isère during a mid-summer night and the following day. [1]
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically he employs a system he called modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from the systems of material generated by his early compositions and improvisations. He wrote music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, vocal music, as well as for solo organ and piano, and also experimented with the use of novel electronic instruments developed in Europe during his lifetime.
Yvonne Louise Georgette Loriod-Messiaen was a French pianist, teacher, and composer, and the second wife of composer Olivier Messiaen. Her sister was the Ondes Martenot player Jeanne Loriod.
Quatuor pour la fin du temps, originally Quatuor de la fin du temps, also known by its English title Quartet for the End of Time, is an eight-movement piece of chamber music by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. It was premiered in 1941. The work is scored for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano; a typical performance of the complete work lasts about 50 minutes. Messiaen wrote the piece while a prisoner of war in German captivity and it was first performed by his fellow prisoners. It is generally considered one of his most important works.
The Turangalîla-Symphonie is the only symphony by Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992). It was written for an orchestra of large forces from 1946 to 1948 on a commission by Serge Koussevitzky in his wife's memory for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Along with the Quatuor pour la fin du temps, the symphony is one of the composer's most notable works.
Le Merle noir is a chamber work by the French composer Olivier Messiaen for flute and piano. It was written and first performed in 1952 and is the composer's shortest independently published work, lasting just over five minutes. It has neither time signature nor key signature. The composition originated in a commission for a test piece for flute for the Paris Conservatoire, at which Messiaen was a professor. The winners of the premier prix in the Concours de flûte that year were Daniel Morlier, Jean Pierre Eustache, Jean Ornetti, Régis Calle and the British flute player Alexander Murray. Messiaen had a consuming, lifelong interest in ornithology and particularly bird songs. While not his first work to incorporate stylised birdsong, Le Merle noir was the earliest of his pieces to be based mainly on birdsong, and it foreshadows Messiaen's later, more extended birdsong-inspired pieces.
Peter P Hill is a British pianist and musicologist.
Feuillets inédits is a piece of music by Olivier Messiaen for piano and ondes Martenot. It is not known when the work was composed but it was put together by the composer's second wife Yvonne Loriod and published in 2001. The manuscript of the fourth part of the work was entitled "Déchiffrage" (deciphering).
Des canyons aux étoiles... is a large twelve-movement orchestral work by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. American Alice Tully commissioned the piece in 1971 to celebrate the bicentenary of the United States Declaration of Independence. In 1972, while preparing the work, Messiaen visited Utah, where he was inspired by the birds and the landscape, particularly at colourful Bryce Canyon. It received its premiere in 1974. Performances of the work can have a duration in the range of 90 to 100 minutes.
Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine is a 1944 cantata by Olivier Messiaen for women's voices, piano solo, ondes Martenot, and orchestra, in three movements. The libretto for the piece was written by Messiaen himself.
Concert à quatre is the final work of the French composer Olivier Messiaen. It is a concerto written for four solo instruments and orchestra.
Quatre Études de rythme is a set of four piano compositions by Olivier Messiaen, written in 1949 and 1950. A performance of them lasts between 15 and 20 minutes.
Apparition de l'église éternelle is a work for organ, written by the French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1932.
Petites esquisses d'oiseaux, is a piano work by Olivier Messiaen composed in 1985, dedicated to his wife Yvonne Loriod. It has six parts, three of which are devoted to robins.
Oiseaux exotiques is a piece for piano and small orchestra by Olivier Messiaen. It was written between 5 October 1953 and 3 January 1956 and was commissioned by Pierre Boulez. It is dedicated to Yvonne Loriod, the composer's wife.
O sacrum convivium! is a short offertory motet for four-part mixed chorus by French composer Olivier Messiaen, setting "O sacrum convivium". It was composed and published in 1937.
The Verset pour la fête de la Dédicace is a short composition for organ by French composer Olivier Messiaen. It was completed in 1960.
Monodie is a short composition for organ by French composer Olivier Messiaen.
The Prélude, usually affixed with the subtitle pour orgue, is an organ piece in E major by French composer Olivier Messiaen. The work, which dates from the 1920s, is, along with the Offrande au Saint Sacrement, the earliest surviving organ work of the composer. Scholars differ as to the exact date and purpose as to when and why it was composed.
Diptyque : essai sur la vie terrestre et l'éternité bienheureuse is a piece for organ by French composer Olivier Messiaen.
Offrande au Saint Sacrement is a meditation in A major for organ in two sections by French composer Olivier Messiaen. It is one of his earliest works for the instrument, and was posthumously published in 2001 following its discovery by Yvonne Loriod.
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