Part of the Southbank’s Multitudes festival, this pairing of silent movie and Messiaen was a feast for the eyes and ears ...

When Olivier Messiaen died in 1992 at age 83, there was no doubt that he was a major figure of 20th century music, a great French composer and an important link between Ravel and Pierre Boulez. But ...

Paris was not burning in August 1944, but the threat was very real. With the French public at the breaking point after more than four years under Nazi rule, the resistance in open rebellion and ...

Exactly when, along with how and why, did Messiaen’s over-the-top “Turangalila” Symphony, which had its premiere in 1949, stop being vulgar? The answers, worthy of a book-length study, require an ...

The superb projection of Hannigan’s voice and the rainbow of colours in Chamayou’s piano lay bare the sexual desire and religious fervour prevalent in Messiaen’s early works Olivier Messiaen wrote ...

On a bitterly cold night in January 1941, French composer Olivier Messiaen debuted a new work. It was an unusual premiere. Messiaen’s audience was an assembly of war prisoners and their guards. The ...

The life and work of the French composer Olivier Messiaen continue to fascinate. A mystic Catholic who sought inspiration from birdsong, vast empty canyons, stained-glass windows and his own ...

The miracle is that Messiaen's music created experiences of such radiant complexity from a religious faith of apparent naivety. No other music of the 20th century explored spirituality with more ...

The dot dot dot that Olivier Messiaen placed at the end of the title for his monument to Utah’s national parks, “Des Canyons aux Étoiles …” (From the Canyons to the Stars …), clearly implies something ...

Like most arts groups, Piano Spheres got through a performance-free pandemic the best it could on Zoom. But after the initial video-vérité fascination of peeking into pianists’ living or practice ...

The composer George Benjamin and the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard met as students. In a new piece, they perform at the keyboard together. By Joshua Barone Loriod, the vessel for Olivier Messiaen’s ...

Vasily Petrenko pairs orchestra with silent movie at the Southbank's festival for orchestral music for all the senses ...