Music and color

by Messiaen, Olivier

In 1967, when Olivier Messiaen agreed to collaborate on a book of conversations, the composer of the evocative and grandly scaled Turangalila-symphonie was already considered one of the masters of twentieth-century music. Yet outside professional circles and a small but enthusiastic public, his works remained little known; he was perhaps most famous as the influential teacher of avant-garde composers Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis. Nearly three decades later, the distinctive musical works of Messiaen have achieved the status of contemporary classics. In the intervening years, the composer himself enjoyed increased fame thanks to the far-reaching influence of his Saint Francois d'Assise, a grand operatic fresco first performed in 1983 at the Paris Opera. Honors and commissions came in abundance, yet Messiaen never bound himself to a single compositional style and never stopped experimenting - with modes that give his works their unique color, with rhythms based