Talk:Olivier Messiaen

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Olivier Messiaen is related to WikiProject Composers which has been provided as a place for editors of biographical articles of Music Composers and Songwriters to discuss common issues, discover neglected composer articles and exchange ideas. All who are interested are invited to comment and contribute.

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[edit] Interim thoughts...

Two thoughts: firstly, can we have a citation for 'The "end of time" of the title ... also refers to the way in which Messiaen, through rhythm and harmony, used time in a way completely different from the music of his contemporaries'? Not that I doubt it, but without a citation it look perilously like OR. Secondly, we don't seem to have any audio clips. Presumably all his music is still copyrighted, but I think we have ample justification for some short fair use clips. I would do them myself, but I don't know which bits would be best. Mark1 13:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Mark. I will try and dig out my reference to the bit you mention and add it. Please go ahead with the audio clips if you can! Unfortunately I do not have the technology. Any sound clips could probably be woven nicely into the article. I have some ideas for what would be appropriate - obviously details will depend on which recordings are available to you!
In case you were actually offering to do some clips (!), here are my suggestions. I wouldn't include more than one item from each of these five categories: (a) something to illustrate pre-Tristan modes and additive rhythms, such as the opening of Danse de fureur from the Quatuor, but anything from the Quatour or Préludes would probably be equally good, (b) an example of his idiomatic organ style, either the opening of the final toccata section of Dieu parmi nous from La Nativité, or the opening of Transports de joie from L'Ascension, (c) something from Turangalîla, possibly his most popular work, say the opening of Joie du sang des etoiles, (d) birdsong from his full maturity: I would choose the beginning or the end of L'oiseau-lyre et la ville-fiancée from Éclairs sur l'au delà, or a clip from one of the piano solo movements from Des canyons aux étoiles…, or an excerpt from any birdsong episode from Catalogue d'oiseaux - the most obvious choice for the latter would be, I suppose, the opening of Le loriot, (e) something serial or avant garde from the fifties or sixties - like a bit of Modes de valeurs et d'intensités, or something from Livre d'orgue or Méditations. Finally, at least one clip should probably feature piano, since that was his main medium. There, I don't ask much :-) --RobertG ♬ talk 16:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I've added clips from a) the Quatour, c) and d) Le loriot at what seemed to me plausible points. You might want to reformat or redistribute them, though. Mark1 17:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! - although I don't have the technology to listen to them! I think where you've placed them is ideal. I've added the citation you requested. --RobertG ♬ talk 09:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I've added b), the opening of Transports de joie, formatted it in a manner similar to what Mark did. I have Latry's and Messiaen's recordings of Livre d'orgue and Latry's Méditations, so if you can give me an exact indication of what part of the piece you want for e) (as I am no expert and I won't be able to determine which part illustrates serialism/avant-garde style best), I'll do a sample of that as well. Jashiin 14:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh and speaking of photographs, I have this one movie about Messiaen which has a lot of interviews. I could make some screenshots, but I'm not sure whether they would be fair use - they are according to the Wiki policy, but in the beginning of the movie there's a notice that no part of the production can be used anywhere without permission, so I'm in doubt. Jashiin 14:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair use is not dependent on permission, so that notice has no effect AFAIK. However, we already have one fair use picture of him, so I'd find it hard to justify adding another one. Markyour words 17:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking of pictures of him with his students, Yvonne Loriod playing, shots from the performance of Saint-François d'Assise, etc. Anyway, RobertG responded on my talk page and he reckons it'd be copyright infringement to add screenshots from documentaries. Jashiin 17:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "L'âme en bourgeon" translation

An anon contributor has changed the translation of L'âme en bourgeon from "the burgeoning soul" to "the flowering soul", but isn't en bourgeon more embryonic than "flowering"? Isn't the idea that the soul hasn't flowered yet rather the point? I propose putting it back to "the burgeoning soul" or, possibly, "the budding soul". What do others think? Any bilingual Wikipedians paying attention?! --RobertG ♬ talk 14:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, I'd go with "burgeoning", "budding" or even "emerging". "Flowering" doesn't have the same sense of nascence, i.e. "flowering" is a further stage of development. However, "The Flowering Soul" is the more common translation of this book. Pinkville 15:24, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of compositions

Why has the list of compositions been moved? The article is a featured article, and I do not understand why it has been unilaterally chopped up. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought so too - and my attempt to make a start on restoring some of the compositions to make a "landmark" list was swiftly expunged. OK I'm not a rigorous "encyclopedic" writer but I was hoping rather for it to be seen as a start and develop to a consensus list ! (The editor who chopped out the list did seem to ask for something to take it's place in his comment.) Johnrcrellin 14:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I agree somewhat. I for one don't like huge lists in featured articles, however I do think there should be a list of particularly important compositions, and I appreciate Johnrcrellin's attempt to make one, and don't really understand why the whole thing was removed without attempting to simply change the adjective used. There are going to be some works by a composer which have a greater impact on the world than others, and I think those should be acknowledged. Mak (talk) 17:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry everyone, but after much thought about what to do I have respectfully, but boldly, put the compositions back. Here are my reasons.
  1. It's a featured article. While I recognise that WP:FA? criteria 2b and 5 are in conflict, I think an almost-complete list is better than no list, and the article gained featured status with the list in place
  2. The article claimed that the list linked to was a "full list", which is not quite true
  3. A small proportion of Messiaen's compositions are insignificant in context, and as the text of the article makes clear nearly all his compositions include some innovation. I don't think a replacement selective list can be formulated without the contributor making some personal value judgements, unless s/he does a ton of research (in journals I don't have access to and certainly don't have time for). This is the main reason, I suspect, that the only editor to attempt a replacement had his effort summarily removed
  4. Information was lost in the move, mainly its references.
  5. An outline of "most significant" works would duplicate information that is in the article already, making an onerous requirement to restructure the whole article
  6. Finally I think the article simply underwent an alarming change of perspective and quality when the reader got to "Works"
If anyone can write a referenced, npov, section outlining the "most significant" works then I have absolutely no objection, but please write the section first and replace the list with it, rather than just removing the list and then saying "someone needs to write something here". --RobertG ♬ talk 16:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Shouldn't it be [mɛsjɛ̃] instead of [mɛsjɔ̃]? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Apus (talk • contribs) August 7 2006.

I do believe this is an important question; but can someone please explain the difference for those of use who are inexpert in IPA, and who are not native French speakers? --RobertG ♬ talk 10:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
According to IPA_chart_for_English, disregarding the nasalisation, and in general American English terms, the first vowel is the one in 'bed', and the second is the one in 'caught'. I can't say how he's pronounced in French, but I've always heard the second version from English speakers. HenryFlower 10:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
hmm... I've always heard the first version (i.e. [mɛsjɛ̃]), from both English and French speakers... I think there's a little tendency in US English (but probably not in UK or Canadian English) to change French [ɛ̃] to [ɔ̃]. I think the page should probably have [mɛsjɛ̃] --128.148.123.85 19:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, there, I personally say (and have always heard in France) [mɛsjɑ̃]. 84.102.67.203 09:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The last anonymous contributor here has it right, I believe. I have heard only [mɛsjɑ̃] from French-speaking musicians. I have not heard a speaker of Canadian French utter the word. Of course there is a very common leaning towards [mɛsjɛ̃] among English speakers, because we know that [ɛ̃] is frequently a pronunciation of "en", as in "bien" and many other words. (I used to say it that way myself, I confess.) Certainly [mɛsjɔ̃] is wrong: [ɔ̃] is not an accepted pronunciation of "en". I am therefore now putting [mɛsjɑ̃] in the article. In the end, one wonders how much any of this can help readers, since most of them (and most of "us", too) are not adept at IPA. – Noetica 23:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
If someone could make a pronunciation file, it'd help quite a bit, I'm sure. A-giau 19:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of students

I disagree that the list of students is irrelevant to the article, and have tagged each article with {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}}, respectively. Other articles about significant musicians or others in the music industry have link or lists of those whose careers they've influenced. Care to discuss your reasoning with me? Thanks! - CobaltBlueTony 18:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't argue that the list of pupils is entirely irrelevant. If I thought that I'd have boldly deleted them from Wikipedia altogether! I merely think that a long list of pupils is inappropriate for the lead paragraph, and that the direction it was potentially going in was the addition to the article of anyone who studied with Messiaen, however briefly or notably. I feel that his students Boulez (who was perhaps his most prominent champion, and who both commissioned works and arranged first performances), Loriod (obviously) and Benjamin (who has been closely associated with Messiaen's music, and who even helped complete one of his works) are definitely worth mentioning in the lead. However I even have my doubts about whether Stockhausen and Xenakis belong in the lead. I think Stockhausen and Xenakis should certainly be mentioned in the body of the article because they serve as examples of how Messiaen encouraged his students to find their own voices rather than imposing his own ideas. But what does the bare fact of his teaching of William Bolcom, Tristan Murail, Theodorakis (or Alexander Goehr or Karel Goeyvaerts for that matter) add to what we know about Messiaen? If it adds something, then we should be able to say what it is in each case. Otherwise we will end up with an indiscriminate list (edit summary: "if you can add Betsy Jolas then I can add Pia Sebastiani and Raffi Ourgandjian") - until we reach entirely non-notable Messiaen pupils. I think the place for such a list is in a separate list article (which is why I started one), not in an encyclopedia article about their teacher. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
In the lead paragraph, I'd only mention two or three of the notable students, but a list near the end of the article, perhaps just before references (maybe even a subset of a "See Also" section) of ONLY notable students is, I think, entirely appropriate. - CobaltBlueTony 15:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Am I looking for difficulties where I needn't? I don't think it's a big issue. It's just that Messiaen had mentor relationships of varying "intensity" with so many notable musicians, not all of them formal "students", that I foresee difficulties keeping the list trimmed! I really think an indiscriminate list would be too much. If the list is not to be indiscriminate then someone has to decide which musicians are notable enough to be included here, and how much tuition qualifies, and this must be WP:OR. This doesn't matter so much if the list is kept separately from the article, which is featured. Does anyone else have a view? --RobertG ♬ talk 16:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
I support a merge, especially because the list is not very long (and I doubt it will ever be extremely long) and can therefore easily be integrated into the main article; of the eight names on it, five are already mentioned in the first paragraph of this article. The best solution, in my opinion, would be to create a new section in the Messiaen article about his work as a teacher and explain what influence his harmony and composition classes had. That is a more useful way to present information than a list. Skarioffszky 11:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

The merge of the students into the Olivier Messiaen article seems like a good idea. Badagnani 08:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's not such a good idea (see discussion immediately above). I'd like to be convinced: why do you think it's a good idea? --RobertG ♬ talk 10:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great artical!

Hi, I just wanted to say this is a fantastic article! I’ve learned a great deal from it. Many thanks to all of you. S.dedalus 06:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

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