Messiaen’s bird dramas

Posted on by Jeremy Thurlow

A study of Messiaen’s birdsong music which I wrote a couple of years ago has now appeared in print in a volume called Messiaen Studies. My essay looks at Messiaen’s wonderful cycle of bird-portraits Catalogue d’Oiseaux [Catalogue of Birds] and considers the pictorial and dramatic dimension of these vivid and extraordinary pieces. This book challenges the respectful orthodoxy which has tended to grow up around Messiaen’s music, presenting a selection of fresh and independent approaches to this least orthodox and most exhilarating of music.

Messiaen Studies, edited by Robert Sholl, published by C.U.P. is available from 5 December 2007.

Click here for more details of the book on the CUP website.

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Published by Jeremy Thurlow

Jeremy Thurlow is a composer, writer and pianist. His music has been performed by the BBC Philharmonic, Sequitur, the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, Endymion, the Kreutzer Quartet, the Schubert Ensemble, the BBC Singers, Matthew Schellhorn, Rolf Hind, among many others. His book on Dutilleux is published in French by Millénaire III, and he has also written and broadcast on Messiaen and numerous other twentieth-century composers.