Table of Contents

Introduction; 1: Techniques; 1: Sacred Machines: Fear, Mystery and Transfiguration in Messiaen's Mechanical Procedures 1; 2: La Fauvette des jardins and the ‘Spectral Attitude'; 3: Aspects of Compositional Organization and Stylistic Innovation in Petites Esquisses d'oiseaux; 4: Messiaen's Counterpoint 1; 1: Intermède 1; 5: A Catalogue of Messiaen's Birds; 2: Influence; 6: Messiaen and Ohana: Parallel Preoccupations or Anxiety of Influence?; 7: The Messiaen–Xenakis Conjunction 1; 8: From France to Quebec: Messiaen's Transatlantic Legacy; 9: Messiaen and the Spectralists; 2: Intermède 2; 10: The Tombeaux of Messiaen: At the Intersection of Influence and Reception; 3: Reception; 11: The Reception of Olivier Messiaen in Italy: A Historical Interpretation 1; 12: Three Decades of Messiaen's Music in Spain: A Brief Survey, 1945–1978; 13: Placing Mount Messiaen 1; 14: Genesis and Reception of Olivier Messiaen's Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d'ornithologie, 1949–1992: Toward a New Reading of the Composer's Writings 1

About the Author

Christopher Dingle is Reader in Music at Birmingham Conservatoire, UK. He is the author of Messiaen's Final Works (2013), the acclaimed biography, The Life of Messiaen (2007), and co-editor of Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art & Literature (2007). He is also editor of The Cambridge History of Music Criticism (forthcoming). Robert Fallon is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. He writes on contemporary classical music and relationships between music and nature, with a special focus on the work and thought of Olivier Messiaen. Christopher Dingle, Robert Fallon, Roderick Chadwick, David Kopp, Christoph Neidhofer, Caroline Rae, Anne-Sylvie Barthel-Calvet, Heather White Luckow, Marilyn Nonken, Raffaele Pozzi, German Gan-Quesada, Jean Boivin.

Reviews

'Both Dingle (Birmingham Conservatoire, UK) and Fallon (Carnegie Mellon Univ.) are lifelong devotees of Messiaen, having researched him extensively and published on his life and work. This is a comprehensive, up-to-date, and invaluable source of information for anyone interested in the composer. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty/professionals.' Choice ’These twenty-nine essays, over two volumes, make a valuable contribution to our understanding of Messiaen the composer. From mechanized composition to music inspired by mountains and bird songs, from questions of influence in Canada, Italy, and Spain to aesthetic convergence with the likes of Ohana, Xenakis, and the spectralists, the authors explore new terrain that compels us to rethink Messiaen’s musical legacy.’ Jann Pasler, University of California, USA ’An erudite and fascinating collection of essays which offer bold new perspectives on one of the towering, and enigmatic, figures of European musical modernism.’ Mark Carroll, University of Adelaide, Australia ’This pair of volumes ... raises the level of insightful scholarship to new heights. The editors and publishers must be congratulated on the production of these handsome volumes, replete with extensive musical illustrations of high quality, surely a compliment to the perfectionist philosophy of their extraordinary subject’. The Musical Times