TITLE: Oiseaux Exotiques (1956)

COMPOSER: Oliver Messiaen (1908-1992)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Oliver Messiaen was born in Avignon, France and studied organ and composition in Paris. In 1942, he was on faculty at the Paris Conservatory as a professor of harmony. Two of his most famous students were Boulez and Stockhausen. Messiaen was not a founder of any school of compositional style or technique. He tried to influence his students to expand their imagination and talents in order to find their own way of communicating their creative expressions. Messiaen integrated elements of mysticism, impressionism and romanticism. His compositional life could be categorized into four distinct periods. Until 1948, Messiaen was strictly neoclassical, as is demonstrated in his organ works completed in the 1930's and the Turangalila Symphony (1948). By 1948, he was one of the first composers to begin experimentation with total serialism. The 1950's became known as Messiaen's Bird Period, for he was very interested in the cataloguing bird calls from around the world. The 1960's brought simpler structures and textures to Messiaen's music. This period could be classified as his Assessable Period, since his music was easier to understand to the listener. Like Mahler, Messiaen became a devout Roman Catholic and believed that composing music was an act of faith. Messiaen worked with rich homophonic textures and employed harmonic and melodic material from a variety of sources among them the plainchant modes, octatonic scales, pitch sets and conventional harmony.

MOVEMENTS: One

PERFORMANCE TIME: 14' 07"

INSTRUMENTATION: 24 Instruments

• Solo Piano, Winds, Percussion

EDITIONS: Rental

1. Alphonse Leduc, 175 rue Saint-Honore, Paris France 17040

• Warner Bros. - Score and Solo Part available for purchase at http://www.jwpepper.com

COMPOSITION SKETCH AND MUSICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Oiseaux Exotiques is one of the first works in Messiaen's Bird Period. The piece is in three clearly defined sections, an introduction, a section of piano cadenzas with instrumental interludes followed by a coda. The work is considered genius, for it utilizes a new musical language of nothing but bird song. Messiaen uses the timbres of woodwinds, brass, piano and percussion to imitate bird song. Dynamics are rarely under a forte level and form is created by a layering of material that is both similar and contrasting to the listener. Messiaen uses Greek and Hindu rhythms in the larger tutti sections of the work.

SELECTED RECORDINGS:

RELATED WEBSITES:

Messiaen Page- http://home.earthlink.net/~paulcarr/music_files/messiaen.html