Fete des belles eaux for 6 ondes martenot For six months in 1937, Paris was the place to see the latest and greatest in ‘art and technology in modern life.’ In other words, the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et

Thoughts on listening to Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus Olivier Messiaen builds cathedrals in sound. From a single candle gently flickering in a quiet side chapel to the glorious fan traceries of the main transept, the private place for solitary prayer

Olivier Messiaen’s monumental and profound work Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus (Twenty Gazes on the Infant Jesus) surely ranks amongst the “greats” of the piano repertoire, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with such titans as Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas

Claire Delbos was the daughter of a Sorbonne professor, a member of the prominent new music society “La Spirale,” and an accomplished violinist and composer. Predictably, she studied at the Paris Conservatory and quickly crossed paths with another highly talented

Olivier Messiaen’s eight Preludes for piano were published in 1929, the year he won the first prize for composition at the Paris Conservatoire. Debussy’s own Preludes were less than twenty years old at the time, and the influence of these

Spiritual Radiance in Music 25 years ago, on 27 April 1992, one of the most original and influential musical minds of the 20th century passed away in Paris. Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was the leading French composer of the generation after

Olivier Messiaen was long retired when he was introduced to a young Chinese composition student. Chen Qigang was born in Shanghai and raised by a family of artists. He began his musical studies at a very early age and was

Who’s going to write it? How long’s it going to be? For how many people? These are just a few of the questions that are asked when a new work is commissioned. What, then, do you get when these constraints