Great Composers: Olivier Messiaen
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Synesthete, ornithologist, composer.
This was a viewer request from UA-camr jamesaellis. If you've got a question or request for a future video, leave a comment, shoot me a message through UA-cam, or use the email/Tumblr links below.
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Classical Nerd is a weekly video series covering music history, theoretical concepts, and techniques, hosted by composer, pianist, and music history aficionado Thomas Little.
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Music:
Olivier Messiaen: Couleurs de la Cité céleste, performed by Avguste Antonov and the University of Kansas Wind Ensemble conducted by John Lynch
[free recording courtesy pianosociety.com]
Thomas Little: Dance! #2 in E minor, Op. 1 No. 2, performed by Rachel Fellows, Michael King, and Bruce Tippette
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Contact Information:
Questions and comments can be directed to:
nerdofclassical [at] gmail.com
Tumblr:
classical-nerd.tumblr.com
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All images and audio in this video are for educational purposes only and are not intended as copyright infringement. If you have a copyright concern, please contact me using the above information.
Your mini-lectures are absolutely amazing, authority, insightful and even-handed. I am 76 and have two degrees in Music and am totally impressed with your UA-cam series. I seat at your feet. Thank you.
Wonderful comment Charles I’m totally seduce by music, and the insight of this 15 minute are great
Share totally your comment
I was lucky to catch Turangalila-symphony live back in 2010-11. The pianist had a nose bleeding, but performed beautifully regardless. In my region performances of such unique pieces is a quite rarity.
I think that's true in all regions, unfortunately.
Thanks for making this! (Would have been even better if samples from his works were inserted, but I can't complain...)
I find Messiaen oddly fascinating. There is so much sensuality in the sounds he creates - his works never sound too brainy or intellectual in spite of the demands they make on the listener. And there are aspects of his aesthetics that seems classical, for example his bird pieces seem to evoke the "art imitates nature" principle, but the result is totally progressive, avant-garde.
PS. Great deadpan joke delivery around 12:08 there 😂
You’re so poetic and awesome introducing all of the great 20th century composers 🙌🌸🎶
I've long been a fan of Messiaen's music, but lacked the musical vocabulary to talk about it. Now I can say what it is about it, that engages me. At least I now have a starting point. Thanks!
My favourite composer for non-piano music, and in my top 3 overall!
such an excellent video. thanks
Killing the exams to finish off my studies at our conservatory. Great video! Thanks.
Awesome!
I will say, when you said that in his later years, Messiaen's big pieces were "behind him", i wanted to jump in to defend Messiaen, cause one of his biggest pieces ever, Éclairs sur l'Au-Delà, was composed in 1988-1991! It's 11 movement, scored for a gigantic orchestra, and involves 15 percussionists (keyboard percussion included), including *three* tubular bells players!
Thank you, for the fabulous 15 minutes that will translate into hours of research
Wonderfully pack in information
Very in depth
I’ve really been enjoying your videos
Thank you
Woah just discovered this channel. I thought I was the classical nerd...
Thank you sir. I am afraid that M.Messiaen's music sounds more like a lecture in mathematics so scary to me but I read that he was thought of as a lovely man so you cannot do better than that. Blessings and peace
It goes by quite quickly in the video so I'd like to add that the modes of limited transposition are, above all, symmetrical modes. The limited transposition bit is very distracting, even though, in the end it boils down to the same thing. The symmetry is the most important part. The twelve note, chromatic scale is symmetrical but it has NO transpositions! You can't get more 'limited' than that. The whole tone scale can be transposed once. The octatonic or diminished scale can be transposed twice and so on. This was an interesting, informative and fun video. I especially like the joke about his new wife crying when Messiaen presented her with a piece to play. 😀
Enjoyed, as always.
What about all his organ works!?
Hi, great video.
Can I make a suggestion? could you make a video of the books you have on your shelf if possible?
Cheers
I did one back in the day! My bookshelf has grown immensely since then, though. A remake may be in order soon.
Are you familiar with the music of Charles Koechlin? (1867- 1950) He uses The Ondes Martenot to great effect in many of his pieces.
I've heard several Koechlin pieces, but none that-to my recollection-had any electronics involved.
@@ClassicalNerd ua-cam.com/video/zdSqHvtT03E/v-deo.html Starting about 12 minutes into the piece. He also uses it in his "Seven Stars Symphony"
@@ClassicalNerd Yes, Thomas, PLEASE do a video on Charles Koechlin. Koechlin's entire cycle "Le Livre de la Jungle" is an unjustly neglected masterpiece. The opening triptych of choral / vocal soloist pieces known as "Trois Poemes du Livre de La Jungle" are remarkable, with the first piece being sublime. The remaining sections are La Loi de la Jungle - Les Bandar-Log - La Course de Printemps - Meditation de Purun Bhagat (My favorites among these are the latter two I listed). All, supremely beautiful works and a cycle whose overall neglect and consistent absence from the international orchestral repertoire are a crying shame and a scandal. Another piece called "Le Buisson Ardent" (The Burning Bush) is a great work, too, with some vague references to a couple themes heard in "The Jungle Book." (By the way, this burning bush is not a Biblical reference, but rather to an episode in Romain Rolland's vast toe-breaker of a novel "Jean-Christophe.")
love it!!
I'd like for you to talk about where concert music is heading for the future as well as your thoughts on the compositional language used today.
Impressive vids. Working through your backlog. Conlon nancarrow? Done him?
Duly noted: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
12:12 hahahahaha that one caught me off guard
I'd love to see one of these on cage or glass/reich
One of my earliest videos was on Cage [watch?v=Ws5wDD_5TwE], while a video on the history of minimalism in general is already in the request queue.
Cheers man ,I only just discovered your chanel. Great job.
@@ClassicalNerd Can I make a counter request for Glass....
@@autsni no
@@GUILLOM h
It’s sometimes weird how musicologists want to define serialism solely as what it was in its initial stages and not what became of it. Same with tone rows and ”so and so did not use the method exactly” when talking about pretty much anyone except Webern...
Also I forgot to like like half of the videos in the series and now I have to watch them again and it makes me happy
I understand what you mean, but it's also necessary to define the Webern-Boulez-Babbitt-Stockhausen school of strict/total serialism as separate from the Berg-Stravinsky-Copland-Messiaen school of occasional serialist influence. If we lumped all composers who ever dabbled in serial technique into one list, said list would be encompass almost all Western twentieth-century composers, and wouldn't be as useful.
That being said, Witold Lutoslawski next? :)
Lutosławski has been bumped up in the request pool.
Really enjoy your videos. How about information about Morton Feldman ? My personal favorite from him is piano and string quartet.
Morton Feldman has been bumped up in the request pool at www.lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
Did you mention that "Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus" (wich is part of the quatuor pour les fin du temps) is arranged from the earlier composition, "IV. L'Eau" from "Fête des belles eaux" for 6 Ondes Martenots, performed at the Paris International Exposition of 1937?
No, as a matter of fact, he didn't! But now I know. Thanks!
Pierre Boulez and Karol Szymanowski plz
You've already requested Szymanowski. You're the fifth person to request Boulez: lentovivace.com/classicalnerd.html
when i heard the name olivier messiaen i tought he was a medieval composer i mistook him for palestrina
Can Morton Feldman get a video?
You're in luck: ua-cam.com/video/VpL80kd9qcY/v-deo.html
What was the name of that 14 movement symphony / oratorio / concerto????
_La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ._
@@ClassicalNerd Thanku!
what is the piece played in the introduction?
All music used in my videos is listed in the video descriptions.
where did he get so much paper?
During the early years of the war, supplies were a lot easier to come by. I don't think Messiaen could have written the _Quartet_ by 1942.
PLAY THE MUSIC!!
Your caps lock seems to be broken
George Crumb next!
Sorry, I don't do living composers; their careers aren't finished, making comprehensive retrospectives impossible.
@@ClassicalNerd RIP Crumb
I see that you’re very open-minded! Could you do a video on Charlemagne Palestine, please? Peace.
It's hard to find a Messiaen work that is exclusively Roman Catholic and not simply, universally Christian. Everything he wrote could have been written by a Protestant except maybe his opera.
Broadly, I understand that sentiment. The ascension of Christ, Resurrection, Transfiguration, Nativity, etc have been done by Protestants and Catholics alike (even some less convicted secular composers). What I think distinguishes his sacred works as “exclusively Catholic”, is the inspiration behind the themes. “Visions de l’Amen” revolves around the philosophy of Ernest Hello, a French-Catholic theologian. “La Transfiguration” includes movements inspired by the work of St Thomas Aquinas. I suggest reading his great Treatise, where he clearly outlines the unique, Catholic angle Messiaen composed from. His work is intrinsically tied to Catholic philosophy/theology, despite the overarching themes being universal across all Christian sects
@@blakesorenson8766 He may be inspired by non-Biblical sources, but he did not write music that espouses uniquely Roman Catholic doctrines, like for example Purgatory, baptismal regeneration, the pope is the vicar of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church, transubstantiation, Mary is co-redemptrix, Mary was sinless, Mary had no sex with Joseph, we should pray to people who have died, etc.
I never heard of this composer before. Weird compositions he has.
ShorkGamer 0 His quartet for the end of time is imo one of the greats musical accomplishments in history . It not only epitomises but sometimes transcends modernist music .
@@TomCL-vb6xc How can anyone think like you is honestly beyond me. The concept behind the techniques used seem curious and interesting to me at the start but the end result is just deeply unmusical, more than music it sounds like some cheap "philosophy of sound" someone made up.
And I have no problem with dissonance, alban berg is dissonant but still makes human intelligible phrases and forms and very tasteful at that. It's not just that Messiaen's music is weird, there is just nothing I find musically valuable in it and I cannot understand how could anyone think otherwise.
Dude, that part about his 2nd wife was hysterical! Wd u concider MUSICAL stand up comedy?? I think u cd be a kind of Youngin' Victor Borga! 😂 Peace