Inspired by the Music of Mozart

Donald Macleod delves into Olivier Messiaen's love for the music of Mozart

Olivier Messiaen was the single most important contributor to the organ repertoire in the twentieth century. He took up learning the organ whilst he was a student in Paris, and was fortunate to hear virtuoso organists around the city including Louis Vierne, Charles Tournemire, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré. Aged just twenty-two, he succeeded Charles Quef as titular organist at the Sainte-Trinité in Paris. Messiaen remained in this post for over sixty years, composing many solo works for the organ that pushed the instrument to its very limits. He rose to become one of the leading composers in France, and also a worldwide musical celebrity. This week Donald Macleod focuses each day on one specific organ work Messiaen composed, whilst exploring the period in which it was written along with those other instrumental works from the same time.

Mozart was one of Messiaen's favourite composers, and he created a number of works inspired by Mozart including The Smile, Chant dans le style de Mozart and Concert à quatre. That final work for full orchestra Messiaen left incomplete, and it was finished by the composer's wife Yvonne Loriod in consultation with the oboist Heinz Holliger, and one of Messiaen's former pupils, the composer George Benjamin. Although in his final years Messiaen had to give up teaching at the Paris Conservatoire, he did remain organist at the Sainte-Trinité in Paris where a hand rail was even put in place to help Messiaen reach the organ loft. In that decade before his death, Messiaen composed another monumental work for the organ, Livre du Saint Sacrement, which was another work very much connected with the composer's deep-rooted Christian faith.

Chant dans le style de Mozart
Guy Deplus, clarinet
Yvonne Loriod, piano

Livre du Saint Sacrement (7th - 10th mvts)
Gillian Weir, organ

Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (1st - 2nd mvts)
Yvonne Loriod, piano

Concert à quatre
Catherine Cantin, flute
Heinz Holliger, oboe
Yvonne Loriod, piano
Mstislav Rostropovich, cello
Orchestre de l'Opéra Bastille
Myung-Whun Chung, conductor

Producer Luke Whitlock.