Publications: Messiaen and Dutilleux

These two French composers have always interested me, though they could hardly be more different.

I’ve written a full-length book on Henri Dutilleux, presenting a detailed study of his major works and of the expressive and elusive musical language which he has elaborated over the last half-century. The book has now been published in French: it was launched at an international conference on Dutilleux attended by the composer himself in Paris in December 2006. It is available from bookshops in France, or can be ordered directly from the publisher. (If you have any trouble finding it, please let me know.)

Henri Dutilleux, ou la musique des songes
[Henri Dutilleux and the music of dreams]

Translated by Frédérique Aït-Touati. Published by Millénaire III; series editor Nicolas Darbon, December 2006, Paris. 272 pages. Price: 29 Euros.

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I’ve also written an article on Messiaen looking at his use of birdsong in his wonderful cycle of piano pieces Catalogue d’Oiseaux [Catalogue of birds]. I’ve tried to get beyond a literal account of this music, with all its birdsongs – so accurately but idiosyncratically rendered – to consider how they affect Messiaen’s musical language and its expressive aims.

‘Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux: a musical dumbshow?’  can be found in a volume called Messiaen Studies, edited by Robert Sholl and published by Cambridge University Press. More details.

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With 2006 being the 100th anniversary of Messiaen’s birth, there was a lot of Messiaen in the air, and one of the most interesting things I’ve been asked to do recently is present Radio 3′s CD Review ‘Building a Library’ feature on the first and (in my opinion) the greatest of Messiaen’s organ cycles, La Nativité du Seigneur.   www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/cdreview/

There’s also an article on Dutilleux in the book Henri Dutilleux: entre la nuée et le cristal (January 2010), and another is in preparation for publication in Contemporary Music Review.

And now [summer 2011], a new article has been published on what I have called ‘a fork in the road: twin paths in Dutilleux’s later music’, in a special edition of Contemporary Music Review on Dutilleux, which will also feature papers by Ken Hesketh, Caroline Potter, Caroline Rae and Julian Anderson.