Around 1940 Messiaen wwhen captured as prisoner of war, & piece incarcerated he composed his Quatuor pour la fin du temps ("Quartet for the end of time") for the quaternary instruments available. A piece was foremost performed by Messiaen & fellow captive to an audience of inmates & jailer.

Messiaen taught at a Paris Conservatory for several years, existence appointed prof of harmony there in 1941, & prof of composition in 1966. Inside his classes there & overseas he taught several distinguished pupils, including Pierre Boulez, Yvonne Loriod (who late became Messiaen's 2nd married woman), Karlheinz Stockhausen, and George Benjamin.

Messiaen's music is rhythmically complex (he was interested in rhythms from either ancient Greek and from Hindu sources), & is harmonically and melodically based on modes of limited transposition. Several of his compositions depict what he termed "the marvellous aspects of the faith", drawing in his unshakeable Roman Catholicism. Messiaen had the modest form of synaesthesia manifested as a perception of colours when he heard certain harmonies, particularly harmonies built from either his modes, & he utilized combinations one colourise his compositions. For the short cycle Messiaen experimented using "total serialism", in which field he is typically cited as an groundbreaker. He absorbed several exotic musical influences like Indonesian gamelan (he made good deal utilize of tuned percussion), and he too championed a ondes Martenot, of which his sister-in-law Jeanne Loriod was the leading exponent.

Messiaen was fascinated by birdsong; he considered birds to be a greatest musicians, & considered himself as much an bird watcher as a composer. He notated birdcall worldwide, & incorporated call transcriptions into a majority of his music.

He travelled widely, & wrote works divine by such diverse influences when Japanese music, the landscape of Bryce Canyon in Utah, and a life of St. Francis of Assisi. His final function, ''Eclairs tyre l'au delà'' ("Illuminations of the beyond"), which depicts numerous of his ideas all about a case of the afterlife, was first performed fallowing his dying.

Biography
Youth and studies
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was innate within Avignon into a literary personal. He was a elder of deuce sons of Cécile Sauvage, a poet, & Pierre Messiaen, a teacher of English who translated the plays of William Shakespeare into French. Messiaen's mother published the sequence of verse form, ''Fifty'âme nut bourgeon ("The Burgeoning Soul"), a previous chapter of Tandis que la terre tourne'' ("As the World Turns"), which location her unborn boy. Messiaen late said this sequence of verse form influenced him deeply, & it wwhen cited by him as prophetical of his first artistic career.

On the eruption of World War I in 1914 Pierre Messiaen became a soldier, & their mother took them boys to swallow her brother around Grenoble. On text Messiaen became fascinated by having dramthe, reciting Shakespeare to his brother sustaining facilitate of a personal-mass produced toy theatre using semitransparent background processed from either old Cellophane wrappers.

He commenced piano lessons after with already taught himself to play. His interest embraced a recent music of French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and he asked for opera vocal scores for Christmas presents. When you took this time period he began to compose.

Around 1918 his father returned from either a war, & a personal moved to Nantes. He continued music lessons; one of his teachers, Jehan diamond state Gibon, gave him the score of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande, which Messiaen described as "a thunderbolt" and "probably the most decisive influence on me". a below month Pierre Messiaen gained a teaching post around Paris, & the personal moved there. Messiaen entered a Paris Conservatoire within 1919, aged Eleven.

At a Conservatoire Messiaen mass produced fantabulous faculty member progress, numbers of days selecting himself top of the class. Witharound 1924, elderly Xv, he was awarded 2nd prize harmonical, around 1926 he gained number one prize in counterpoint and fugue, and inside 1927 he won number one prize within soft accompaniment. Inside 1928, when researching by using Maurice Emmanuel, he was awarded first prize for the history of music. Emmanuel's case engendered inside Messiaen an interest around ancient Greek rhythms & exotic modes. When showing improvisation skills on a piano Messiaen began to study the organ with Marcel Dupré, and from either him he inherited a tradition of peachy French organists (Dupré got exposed using Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne; Vierne in turn was the pupil of César Franck). Messiaen gained number one prize around organ swimming & improvisation around 1929. His composition teacher was Paul Dukas who instilled witharound Messiaen the mastery of orchestration, & in 1930 Messiaen won 1st prize in composition.

When he was the student he composed his number one promulgated compositions, his nine Préludes for piano (a earliest Le banquet céleste was published later). These already exhibit Messiaen's have of his favorite modes of limited transposition and palindromic rhythms (Messiaen called these non-retrogradable rhythms). His public debut come around 1931 by having his orchestral suite Les offrandes oubliées. Besides in this month he number 1 heard the gamelan group, which sparked his interest in the use of tuned percussion.

Around 1931 Messiaen was appointed organist at a Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris, a post he was to hang on to for other than Sixty years.

La Jeune France, and Messiaen's war
Inside 1932, Messiaen married a fiddler & fellow composer Claire Delbos. Their marriage inspired him to compose works for her to play (Thème et variations for fiddle & piano in a month it were married), & pieces to celebrate their domesticated happiness (including the song cycle Poèmes pour Mi inside 1936, which Messiaen orchestrated in 1937). Mi was Messiaen's caring nickname for his married woman. Around 1937 their boy Pascal was innate. Messiaen's marriage turned to tragedy while his married woman misused her memory when an operation, & she spent a rest of her life inside mental institutions.

Within 1936, Messiaen, André Jolivet, Daniel-Lesur and Yves Baudrier formed the class action La Jeune France ("Young France"). Their pronunciamento implicitly attacked a frivolity around tremendously contemporary Parisian music, rejecting Jean Cocteau's manifesto ''Le coq et fifty'arlequin'' of 1918 pro the "living music, having the impetus of sincerity, generosity and artistic conscientiousness". Messiaen's career before long departed from either this public phase, even so, when a music Messiaen was composing at this instance was non for even public commissions or conventional concerts.

Inside 1937 Messiaen demonstrated his interest in a ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument, by composing the unpublished Fêtes des belles eaux for an ensemble of hexad, & he involved the a portion for the instrument inside numerous of his subsequent compositions.

When you took this period of time Messiaen composed organ oscillations, for himself to play. He intended his orchestral suite ''Fifty'Ascension'' for organ, replacing a orchestral version's third movement by having an entirly freshly movement, one of Messiaen's virtually all popular, ''Transports diamond state joie d'une âme devant la gloire du Christ qui eastern time la sienne ("Ecstacies of a soul before the glory of Christ, which is its own glory", commonly good called Transports diamond state joie). He too wrote a extensive oscillations La Nativité du Feudal lord & Les corps glorieux. A final toccata of La Nativité, Dieu parmi nous ("God among us") has be a second favorite recital piece, typically played severally.

At a irruption of World War II Messiaen was called higher into a French army, as a medical aide like than an active battler due to his unfortunate seeing. Within Might 1940 he was captured at Verdun, & was taken to Görlitz where he was imprisoned at prison camp Stalag VIIIA. He before long found the fiddler, the violoncellist, & the clarinetist among his fellow captive. At first he wrote the trio for the babies, however step by step incorporated this trio into his Quatuor pour la fin du temps'' ("Quartet for the End of Time"). This was number 1 performed inside the camp to an audience of captive & screw, the composer swimming a badly maintained upright piano, within freezing conditions in January 1941. So a implemented self-contemplation & reflection of campy life wore fruit inside one of 20th-century European classical music's acknowledged masterpieces. A "end of time" of the title is non strictly an allusion to the Apocalypse, the act's ostensible subject, however likewise refers to a way where Messiaen, across rhythm & harmony, utilized period around how else entirely different from either the music of his coeval.

Tristan, and serialism
Shortly fallowing his release from either Görlitz withwithin Could 1941, Messiaen was appointed a prof of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire, in which he taught until his retirement in 1978. He likewise devoted a select few period to compiling his System delaware mon langage musical ("Technique of my musical language") published around 1944, where he quotes numbers of examples from either his music, particularly a Quartet.

Among Messiaen's early students at a Conservatory were composer Pierre Boulez and pianist Yvonne Loriod. More pupils late involved Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1952. A Greek Iannis Xenakis was briefly referred to him around 1951; Messiaen provided encouragement & exhorted Xenakis to require benefit of his background within maths & architecture, & utilize the two in his music. Although Messiaen was single around his mid-thirties his students of the cycle late reported that he was already an great teacher, encouraging the two to buy their have voice like than imposing his have ideas.

Around 1943 Messiaen wrote ''Visions first state fifty'Amen ("Visions of the Amen") for deuce pianos for Loriod & himself to perform, & shortly subsequently composed a tremendous solo soft period Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus ("Twenty gazes on the child Jesus") for her. He besides wrote Trois petites liturgies delaware la Présence Divine ("Three small liturgies of the Divine Presence") for female chorus & orchestrthe which includes a hard solo soft a share, over again for Loriod. Messiaen so continued to bring liturgical cases into a soft recital & a concert hall.

Within 1945 Messiaen composed a foremost of trinity works on the theme of man (when opposed to divine) love, particularly inspired per legend of Tristan and Isolde. This was a song period Harawi. A 2nd of the Tristan'' works was the symptom of a commission from either Serge Koussevitsky for even a piece (Messiaen stated that a commission did does'nt specificy a length of a act or a size of the orchestra); this was the ten-movement Turangalîla-Symphonie. This is non the conventional symphony, but like a long meditation on the joy of individual love & union. It lacks a intimate guilt inherent around, say, Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, because Messiaen's attitude was that sexual love is a divine gift.

Messiaen visited a United States in 1947, his music being conducted there by Koussevitsky & Leopold Stokowski, and his Turangalîla-Symphonie was number one performed there inside 1949 conducted by Leonard Bernstein. When you took this period of time, too when existence given an analysis class at the Paris Conservatoire, he as well taught within Budapest in 1947, Tanglewood in 1949, & in the summers of 1949 and 1950 he taught classes at Darmstadt. Fallowing teaching analysis of serial scores such as Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire for many years he became concerned in serial music himself, ingesting a construct farther than former composers by introducing serial music of timbres, intensities and durations. A resolutions one experiments were pieces like ''Modes diamonfive hundred state valeurs et d'intensités for piano which use been described when a number 1 works of number serial music. In the period of time of this period he as well experimented by owning musique concrète, music for recorded sounds.

Birdsong, and the 1960s
Inside 1951 Messiaen was asked to provide the line 3 text piece for flautists wishing to enter a Paris Conservatoire, & Messiaen composed the piece Le blackbird noir for flute & piano. Although Messiaen got hanker been fascinated by call, & birds got manufactured appearances within many of his sooner works (for instance La Nativité, Quatuor & Vingt regards), a flute piece is depending totally on the song of the blackbird. This development was taken to a newly level by using the orchestral act Réveil des oiseaux inside 1953  — a function is composed near totally of song, ingesting when its poop a birds a single can hear between midnight & midday in the Jura. From either this time period forwards Messiaen incorporated song into 100% of his compositions, & indeed he composed many works for which birds provide a title & subject matter (e.g. a collection of long dozen pieces for soft Catalogue five hundred'oiseaux completed inside 1958, & La fauvette des jardins'' of 1971), although these works come sophisticated symphonic poem evoking place & atmosphere like than just transcriptions of song. Paul Griffiths points out that Messiaen was the additional scrupulous bird watcher than any former composer, & the extra musical observer of call than any last bird watcher.

Inside 1959 Messiaen's number 1 married woman died as punishment her hanker unwellness, & around 1961 he married Yvonne Loriod. He began to travel widely, two to attend musical cases, & to search out & transcribe a songs of additional exotic birds. Inside 1962 his travels took him to Japan, and he was inspired by Japanese Gagaku music and Noh theatre to compose the orchestral "Japanese sketches", Sept haïkaï, which contains stylized imitations of traditional Japanese instruments.

Messiaen's music was at this period championed by, among others, Pierre Boulez, world health organization programmed 1st performances at his Domaine musical concerts, and a Donaueschingen festival. Works performed on this button involved Réveil des oiseaux, Chronochromie (licensed for the 1960 festival) & Couleurs delaware la cité céleste. the latter piece was the symptom of a commission for a composition for tercet trombones and tierce xylophones; Messiaen added to this more brass, wind, percussion & piano, & specified the marimba, xylorimba and marimba rather than three marimba. An additional act of this time period, Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorem, was licenced as a commemoration of the dead of the 2 Globe Wars, & was 1st performed semi-privately in the Sainte-Chapelle, and then publicly around Chartres Cathedral with Charles de Gaulle in the audience.

His reputation as a composer continued to develop, & withwitharound 1966 he was officially appointed prof of composition at a Paris Conservatoire (although he got in outcome been teaching composition for years), & in 1967 he was elected to the Institut de France. Around 1971, Messiaen was awarded a Erasmus Prize.

Transfiguration, Canyons, St. Francis, and the Beyond
Messiaen's next act was a tremendous La Transfiguration delaware Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ. This composition occupied Messiaen from either 1965 to 1969 & the forces listed include the 100-voice ten-a portion choir, sevener solo instruments & a big orchestra. Its xiv movements come the meditation on the story of Christ's Transfiguration.

Shortly after Messiaen received a commission from either the Western Alice Tully for a operate to celebrate a bicentennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. He intended the visit to the America around spring 1972, & was inspired by Bryce Canyon in Utah, which he visited, notating birdsong & colours there. A ten-movement orchestral piece Des Canyons aux étoiles… was a effect, which was number one performed inside 1974 within Up to date York.

So, within 1975, Messiaen was invite the piece for the Paris Opéra. Ab initio reluctant to undertake such a major plan, Messiaen was eventually persuaded to assume the commissiin & began operate on his ''Saint-François d'Assise''. Composition of this function was an troglodytes troglodytes project (he likewise wrote his have libretto), occupying him from either 1975-79, so a orchestration was carried out from 1979 until 1983. the operate (which Messiaen favorite to call for a "spectacle" like than an opera) was first performed within 1983. Inside 1978 Messiaen got retired from either teaching at a Conservatory.

It was thought by a bit of commentators at a period of its number 1 production that Messiaen's operthe would become his valediction, however he continued composing, bringing out a major collection of organ pieces, Livre du Saint Sacrement, inside 1984, also when farther bird pieces for solo piano & pieces for piano by using orchestra. Inside 1988 tributes for Messiaen's Eightieth birthday inside the area of the earth involved a performance in London of St. François, & the publication of a collection of Twenty Videos of Messiaen's music by Erato including recordings by Loriod & the disc of the composer within conversation by owning Claude Samuel.

Messiaen's previous compositiin resulted from either either a commission from a Just released York Philharmonic Orchestra; although he was around lot hurt touching the prevent of his life (requiring recurrent surgery on his back) he was entity to complete ''Eclairs tyre fifty'au delà'', which was performed half a dozen months when a composer died. Messiaen experienced besides been composing a concerto for foursome musicians he felt particularly thankful to, videlicet Loriod, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the oboist Heinz Holliger and the flute player Catherine Cantin. This was substantially complete whilst Messiaen died, & a final movement's orchestration was undertaken by Yvonne Loriod sustaining advice from either George Benjamin.

Music
About there is no music by Messiaen can be mistaken for the operate of any more western classical composer. His music hwhen been described as outside a american musical tradition, although growing away from that tradition & influenced by it. There exists very much within Messiaen's output that denies a american conventions of forward motion, development and diatonic harmonic resolution. This is part due to the symmetries of his technique — for example a modes of limited transposition don't admit a conventional cadences found in american classical music.

Messiaen's vernal love for a fairy-tale element within Shakespeare prefigured his late expressions of what he known as "the marvellous aspects of the [Roman Catholic] Faith" — among which can be numbered Christ's Nativity, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Transfiguration, the Apocalypse and the hereafter. Messiaen was non interested around depicting aspects of theology such as sin; rather he concentrated on the theology of joy, divine love, and human redemption.

Although Messiaen high-pressure evolved recently composition techniques, he integrated a two into his musical genre; thus e.g. his final act however retains the utilise of modes of limited transposition. For several commentators this family practice development of Messiaen's musical language processed each major function from either a Quatuor forrader the conscious summation of completely that Messiaen got composed as much as that period. But super couple of one major works contain there are no freshly technical indicator ideas — elementary examples existence a introduction of communicable language inside Meditations, a invention of a freshly percussion instrument (the geophone) for Des canyons aux etoiles…, & a freedom from either any synchronisation by owning a independent pulse of single area inside certain call episodes of ''St. François 500'Assise''.

Too when newly techniques which Messiaen found for himself, among a exotic music which Messiaen absorbed into his system were Hindu rhythms (he encountered Śārṅgadeva's names of Great hundred rhythmical units, a deçî-tâlas), Balinese & Javanese Gamelan, birdcall, & Japanese music.

When he was subservient in the academic exploration of his techniques (he published ii treatises, the late of these around 5 volumes which was substantially complete after he died), & was himself an expert of music analysis, he considered the development & survey of techniques to exist as a means to intellect, aesthetic and emotional ends. In that connection, Messiaen maintained that a musical composition must exist as measured against iii separate criteria: to become successful it must exist as interesting, beautiful to listen to, & it must touch the auditor.

Messiaen wrote good deal music for piano. Although the considerable piano player himself, he was doubtless assisted by Yvonne Loriod's formidable soft system & ability to convey complex rhythms & rhythmical combinations; inside his piano writing from either ''Visions delaware fifty'Amen forward he got her around mind. Messiaen said, "I am able to allow myself the greatest eccentricities because to her anything is possible."

Western artistic influences
Messiaen was tremendously influenced by developments around modern French music, particularly a music of Claude Debussy and his use of the whole tone scale (which he called Mode One around his modes of limited transposition). Although Messiaen did non utilize a whole tone shell inside his compositions (because, he said, fallowing Debussy & Dukas there was "nothing to add") he did utilise likewise symmetrical modes.

Messiaen besides got a great admiration for the music of Igor Stravinsky, particularly his use of rhythm within earliest works like The Rite of Spring, and besides his utilize of colour. He was too influenced per orchestral brilliance of Heitor Villa-Lobos, who sleep in Paris in the Twenties & gave acclaimed concerts there. Among composers for the keyboard Messiaen singled out Jean-Philippe Rameau, Domenico Scarlatti, Frédéric Chopin, Debussy and Isaac Albéniz, although Messiaen characteristically modified the final interval in that motif from either the perfect fourth to a tritone.

Messiaen was as well influenced by Surrealism, as can be seen from either a titles of occasionally of the soft Préludes (Un reflet dans lupus erythematosus vent…, "A reflection in the wind") & around occasionally of the imagination of his poetry (he published verse form when prolusion to certain works, e.g. Les offrandes oubliées'').

Colour
Colour lies at a heart of Messiaen's music. Messiaen said that a terms "tonal", "modal" and "serial" (and more such terms) come misleading analytical conveniences. Additionally, Messiaen had modest synesthesia, manifested whenever a own experience of colours when he heard or even imagined music (he said that he did non perceive a colours visually).

Within certain of Messiaen's scores, a colourise the music come notated (notably around Couleurs first state la Cité Céleste & Des canon aux étoiles…) — Messiaen's purpose existence to help a conductor in interpretation rather than to specify which colours a hearer should case.

George Benjamin said, "Messiaen's main legacy is the incorporation of colour into the technique of composition."

Symmetry
Several of Messiaen's composition techniques manufactured have of symmetries of period & pitch.

Symmetry in time
Messiaen combined rhythms by using harmonic sequences around such how else that in case a begin were allowed to proceed indefinitely a music would yet run across all the imaginable permutations & link to to its starting point — this represented for Messiaen what he termed a "charm of impossibilities" of these processes. An early case of this procedure is to become detected in the piano & violoncello area of the number one movement of the Quatuor pour lupus erythematosus fin first state temporary. Within practice, naturally, Messiaen lone ever presented the part of any such run, when in case allowing for the informed attender a glimpse of something eternal.

From either his earliest works Messiaen typically utilized non-retrogradable rhythms (palindromic rhythms).

Symmetry of pitch
Messiaen utilized modes which he known as his modes of limited transposition, which are distinguished when groups of notes which may single become transposed by the half step the limited total of days. E.g. a whole tone shell (Messiaen's Mode One) exclusively is around 2 transpositions: viz. C-D-E-F♯-G♯-The♯ & D♭-E♭-F-G-The-B. Messiaen abstracted these modes from either a harmony of his improvisations & early works. For Messiaen a modes besides possessed colour.

Time and rhythm
Messiaen considered his rhythmical contribution to music to exist as his distinguishing mark among modern composers. Too when making utilize of non-retrogradable rhythms, & a Hindu decî-tâlas, Messiaen as well mass produced utilize of "additive" rhythms. This involves lengthening single notes slightly or even interpolating the short note into an otherwise regular rhythm (e.g. of this listen to Danse first state fureur from either a Quatuor), or even even shortening or protractiin each note of the rhythm per equivalent duration (adding the sixteenth note to each note around the rhythm on its repetition, for instance). This led Messiaen to utilize rhythmical cells alternating between two and 3 units, the run which likewise occurs inside Stravinsky's A Rite of Spring which Messiaen admired.

The factor that contributes to Messiaen's suspension of a conventional perception of instance around his music is the super slow tempos he typically specifies (the Fifth movement ''Louange à l'Eternité delaware Jésus of Quatour is actually given a tempo marking infinement lent); & potentially within his quickly music he typically utilizes perennial phrases & harmonies to produce a speed seem electrostatic.

Messiaen too utilized a construct of "chromatic durations", e.g. within his Soixante-quatre durées from either Livre five hundred'orgue,'' which assigns the distinct duration to 64 pitches ranging from either yearn to short & sale to high, severally.

Harmony
Messiaen's harmonic utilise of modes of limited transposition is discussed above.

Messiaen maintained that resonance is the physical phenomenon, providing musical chords with a context which is missing inside strictly serial music.

Messiaen likewise composed music in which a fundamental note wwhen combined by owning higher notes played softly, these higher notes functioning when harmonics altering a quality such as than as conventional harmony, like mixture stops on a pipe organ. An case of easy harmonics altering a tone therein way come a song of the golden oriole in Le loriot of the ''Catalogue d'oiseaux'' for solo piano.

Messiaen's apply of diatonic chords into his music typically transcends their historically threadbare connotations (for instance, his frequent utilize of the added sixth chord as a resolution).

Birdsong
Messiaen was fascinated by call from either an early age — indeed, his teacher Dukas is reported to stand urged his pupils to "listen to the birds". Ofttimes he exposed birdcall by notating it in the untamed piece his married woman Yvonne Loriod assisted by making the tape recording for checking later.

Messiaen involved conventionalised song inside early compositions (e.g. ''L'abîme five hundred'oiseaux from either a Quatuor), however a birdcall episodes within his function became progressively sophisticated, & at length Messiaen began notating a bird coinage by having a music in the score. By having Le Réveil des Oiseaux'' this run reached maturity, the whole piece existence built from either song: effectively these are a dawn chorus for orchestra.

A song within Messiaen's music is integrated into his healthy-globe by techniques like utilise of the modes of limited transposition & of chord coloration. Possibly a works by owning bird-inspired titles, like ''Catalogue 500'oiseaux & Fauvette des jardins, come symphonic poem elysian per landscape up to a birds. These pieces evoke a place, its colour & its atmosphere.

Serialism
Messiaen is credited by a bit of critics by having a invention of "total serialism", where serial music is touch include non just pitch, however as well duration, attack & quality. Messiaen expressed annoyancethat his function Modelaware de valeurs et d'intensités, seen by a bit of when a number 1 function of sum serial music, was given such importance around his output.

Inside the related development, Messiaen introduced what he known as the "communicable language", where he utilized the "musical alphabet" to encode sentences. This system was 1st introduced inside his Meditations tyre lupus erythematosus mystère first state la Sainte Trinité for organ; in that act a "alphabet" besides includes motifs for the construct to develop, to exist as, & God, & a sentences encoded include sections from either a writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Works
Compositions
Le banquet céleste, organ (1926or even 1928) Préludes, soft (1928-29) Dyptique, organ (1930) La mort du nombre'' ("Number's death"), soprano, tenor, fiddle & piano (1930) Les offrandes oubliées ("The forgotten offerings"), orchestra (1930) Trois mélodies, song period (1930) ''Apparition first state fifty'église éternelle ("Apparition of the eternal church"), organ (1932) Fantaisie burlesque, piano (1932) Hymne au Saint Sacrament ("Hymn to the Holy Sacrament"), orchestra (1932, reconstructed 194?) Thème et variations, fiddle & piano (1932) Fifty'Ascension ("The Ascension"), orchestra (1932-33; organ version including replacement movement, 1933-34) La Nativité du Seignior'' ("The Lord's nativity"), organ (1935) Pièce pour lupus erythematosus tombeau first state Paul Dukas, soft, (1935) Vocalise, voice & piano (1935) Poèmes pour Mi, song period (1936, orchestral version 1937) O sacrum convivium!, choral motet (1937) Chants first state terre et first state ciel ("Songs of earth and sky"), song period (1938) Les corps glorieux ("Glorious bodies"), organ (1939) Quatuor pour la fin du temps ("Quartet for the end of time"), fiddle, violoncello, clarinet, soft (1940-41) Rondeau, piano (1943) ''Visions first state 50'Amen ("Visions of the Amen"), 2 pianos (1943) Trois Petites liturgies first state la Présence Divine'' ("Three small liturgies of the Divine Presence"), women's voices, soft solo, ondes Martenot solo, orchestra (1943-44) ''Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jésus ("Twenty gazes on the Christ-child"), piano (1944) Harawi, song period (1944) Turangalîla-Symphonie, piano solo, ondes Martenot solo, orchestra (1946-48) Cinq réchants, Dozen singers (1948) Cantéyodjayâ, piano (1949) Messe delaware la Pentecôte ("Pentecost mass"), organ (1949-50) Quatre études diamond state rythme ("Four studies in rhythm"), piano (1949-50) # Île de feu 1 # Modiamond state de valeurs et d'intensités # Neumes rhythmique # Île de feu 2 Le merl noir ("Blackbird"), flute & soft (1949-50) Livre five hundred'orgue, organ (1951) Réveil des oiseaux ("Dawn chorus"), solo piano & orchestra (1953) Oiseaux exotiques ("Exotic birds"), solo piano & orchestra (1955-56) Catalogue 500'oiseaux ("Bird catalogue"), piano (1956-58) Book 1 i Le chocard des alpes ("Alpine chough") ii Le loriot ("Golden oriole") iii Le turdus merula blue cheese ("Blue rock thrush") Book 2 iv Le traquet stapazin ("Black-eared wheatear") Book 3 v La chouette hulotte ("Tawny owl") vi Fifty'alouette looker ("Woodlark") Book 4 vii La rousserolle effarvatte ("Reed warbler") Book 5 viii 50'alouette calandrelle ("Short-toed lark") ix La bouscarle'' ("Cetti's warbler") Book 6 x Le ousel delaware roche ("Rock thrush") Book 7 xi La buse variable ("Buzzard") xii Le traquet rieur ("Black wheatear") xiii Le courlis cendré ("Curlew") Chronochromie ("Time-colour"), orchestra (1959-60) Verset pour la fête first state la dédicace, organ (1960) Sept haïkaï ("Seven haikus"), solo piano and orchestra (1962) Couleurs delaware la cité céleste ("Colours of the Celestial City"), solo piano & ensemble (1963) Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum ("And we look for the resurrection of the dead"), wind, brass & percussion (1964) La Transfiguration delaware Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ ("The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ"), big 10-a portion chorus, soft solo, violoncello solo, flute solo, clarinet solo, xylorimba solo, vibes solo, big orchestra (1965-69) Méditations tyre lupus erythematosus mystère diamond state la Sainte Trinité ("Meditations on the mystery of the Holy Trinity"), organ (1969) La fauvette des jardins ("Garden warbler"), piano (1970) Des Canyons aux étoiles… ("From the canyons to the stars…"), solo piano, solo horn, solo orchestral bells, solo xylorimba, little orchestra using Thirteen string players (1971-74) ''Saint-François d'Assise ("St. Francis of Assissi"), opera (1975-1983) Livre du Saint Sacrament ("Book of the Holy Sacrament"), organ (1984) Petites esquisses five hundred'oiseaux ("Small sketches of birds"), piano (1985) Un vitrail et des oiseaux ("Stained-glass window and birds"), soft solo, brass, wind & percussion (1986) La ville d'En-haut ("The city on high"), soft solo, brass, wind & percussion (1987) Un sourire ("A smile"), orchestra (1989) Concert à quatre ("Quadruple concerto"), piano, flute, hautbois, violoncello & orchestra (1990-91, completed Loriod & Benjamin) Pièce pour soft et quatuor à cordes ("Piece for piano and string quartet") (1991) Eclairs tyre l'au-delà'' ("Illuminations of the beyond"), orchestra (1988-92)

The total of works survive which were non published within Messiaen's lifespan, including a below, a bit of of which use at times been published posthumously.

La dame delaware Shallott, for piano (1917) La banquet eucharistique, for orchestra (1928) Variations écossaises, for organ (1928) Mass, Octad sopranos & Quaternary fiddle (1933) Fêtes des belles eaux, for sextuplet ondes Martenots (1937) Musique delaware scène pour un Oedipe, electronic (1942) Chant des déportés, chorus & orchestra (1946) Timbres-durées, musique concrète (1952), realised by Pierre Henry in the radiotelephonic workshop of French radio, an experiment which Messiaen later deemed the failure

Publications
System first state mon language musical comedy ("The technique of my musical language"), Leduc, Paris, 1944. Traité delaware rythme, first state couleur, et d’ornithologie (1949-1992) ("Treatise of rhythm, colour and ornithology"), completed Loriod, Leduc, Paris, 1994–2002; Septet area attached within Eight volumes.