Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen

Brother:

* Alain André Prosper Messiaen (30 August 1912 — 10 May 1990)

Children:

* Pascal Emmanuel Messiaen (27 July 1937 — 31 January 2020)

### Affiliation

* Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (1919/1941-1978)
* Église de la Sainte-Trinité de Paris (1931-1992)
* La jeune France (1936-1992)
* Schola Cantorum de Paris (1931-1978)

## Biographical information

### Marital status

* Married to [Claire] Louise-Justine Delbos (22 November 1906 — 22 April 1959) from 21 June 1932 to her death, 22 April 1959
* Married to Yvonne Louise Georgette Loriod (20 January 1924 — 17 May 2010) from 1 July 1961 to his death, 27 April 1992

### Place of birth

* Résidence de M. et Mme Pierre Messiaen
* 20 Boulevard Sixte-Isnard, 84000 Avignon, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France

### Place of death

* 20:30, Hôpital Beaujon
* 100 Boulevard du Général Leclerc, 92110 Clichy, Paris, Île-de-France, France

## Physical description

### Eye color

Brown

**Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen** *(10 December 1908 in Avignon, Vaucleuse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur — 27 April 1992 in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France)* was a French composer and music theorist of classical orchestral, chamber, electronic, and keyboard music among others, improvisatory church organist and pianist, and ornithologist who served as professor of harmony from 1941 to 1966 and professor of composition from 1966 to 1978 at the Conservatoire de Paris; and titular organist at the great organ of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris, built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and later remodeled under his supervision.

Widely considered the most significant French composer of the second half of the 20th century, Messiaen's distinct forms of music, a synthesis of Western and Eastern musical traditions, have been critically acclaimed for its rich intricacies and textures; which include but are not limited to complex rhythms, colour, which he greatly exploited using a condition he had called synaesthesia, usage of time, symmetry, harmony, a development of his named modes of limited transposition, heavy religious references and themes, and most famously, transcribed birdsong.

Olivier Messiaen, baptised a Roman Catholic, was the first of two sons born to poets in Avignon. He later self-taught himself the piano and shortly after composed his first composition. After further studying music theory and gathering influences from the day - Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy...

As professor of harmony and composition at the Conservatoire de Paris, Messiaen was able to teach people who have later been renowned as among the finest of the 20th and 21st centuries - ...

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## Biography

> 852: "*On 12 December 1908 at half past ten in the morning, before us, Jacques Arlaud, deputy, delegate of the Mayor for the civil status of Avignon, Vaucleuse, met Pierre Léon Joseph Messiaen, professor [of English], aged twenty five, who lives in Avignon. [He] presented us with a male child born the day before yesterday at eleven o'clock in the day, in his house, Boulevard Sixte-Isnard Nº20; of his, and of Cécile Anne Marie-Antoinette Sauvage, his wife, unemployed [actually a poet], aged twenty five years. The child was declared to bear the forenames of **Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles**. The acts, declaration and presentation made in the presence of the following witnesses: Prosper Sauvage, retired professor, aged sixty, maternal grandfather of the child, and Léopold Olivier, retired provider, aged sixty-six, who lives in this town." Signed by the father and the witnesses after reading: Pierre Messiaen, Prosper Sauvage, Léopold Olivier, Jacques Arlaud.*
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