Messiaen: Livre du Saint Sacrement

Featuring

Colin Andrews
Olivier Messiaen

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Compositional Technique

Olivier Messiaen's 'Livre du Saint Sacrement' employs various techniques including modes of limited transposition, Hindu and Greek rhythms, plainsong, birdsong, and 'communicable language' where letters are represented by pitch and duration.

Composer Biography

Olivier Messiaen was appointed Organiste Titulaire of Sainte Trinité Church in Paris in 1930, a position he held until the early 1970s.

Performer Biography

Colin Andrews, the organist on this recording, is one of only four organists worldwide to have recorded the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen.

Compositional Technique

Olivier Messiaen, who had synaesthesia (the ability to see music in color), used specific organ registrations to evoke colors, such as gray and mauve for the words of institution in 'Institution de l'Eucharistie'.

Composition History

Olivier Messiaen's 'Livre du Saint Sacrement' (Book of the Holy Sacrament) was inspired by an improvisation during a Maundy Thursday service at Sainte Trinité Church in Paris.

Composer Biography

Olivier Messiaen, born in Avignon, France, to a Shakespeare scholar and a poet, showed musical talent early and entered the Paris Conservatory at age eleven.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Despite incorporating secular and other religious influences, Olivier Messiaen's primary musical purpose was to express 'spiritual truths of the Catholic faith'.