Olivier Messiaen quote

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), one of the most influential composers of the 20th century, was a devout and faithful Catholic.  His organ compositions were all centered around spiritual, and specifically Catholic, themes.  A few titles (in English) are The Celestial Banquet, Vision of the Eternal Church, The Ascension, Nativity of the Lord, Book of the Holy Sacrament, and Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity.  It is from this last collection that I've chosen a piece, Meditation VI, for my senior recital.





As part of my research for playing the piece, as well as writing about it for the recital program, I came across this gem (and there are a LOT that he's uttered) translated from the original French:

Scientific research, mathematical proof, amassed biological experiments have not saved us from uncertainty.  Quite the contrary, they have increased our ignorance by constantly revealing new realities within what was believed to be reality.  In face, the one sole reality is of a different order: it is to be found in the realm of Faith.  Only by encountering another Being can we understand it.

But to do that, we have to pass through death and resurrection, and that implies the leap out of temporal things.  Strangely enough, music can prepare us for it, as a picture, as a reflection, as a symbol.  In fact, music is a perpetual dialogue between space and time, between sound and colour, a dialogue which leads into a unification:  Time is a space, sound is a colour, space is a complex of superimposed times, sound-complexes exist at the same time as complexes of colours.  The musician who thinks, sees, hears, speaks, is able, by means of these fundamental ideas, to come closer to the next world to a certain extent.  And, as St. Thomas says:  music brings us to God through "default of truth", until the day when He Himself will dazzle us with "an excess of truth".  That is perhaps the significant meaning--and also the directional meaning--of music....

Before now, I've played only one Messiaen piece, Apparition de l'Église éternelle, at St. Paul's about three years ago, shortly after I started playing for Mass.  I think it's fair to say that the piece was misunderstood by nearly everyone, but at least one young man I spoke with later (a seminarian) GOT IT.  I was immensely pleased.