Messiaen, Olivier, << mehs YAHN, aw lee VYAY >> (1908-1992), was a French composer. His wide-ranging style uses elements of bird calls, church vocal music called plainsong, and Greek and Hindu rhythms. His 10-movement symphony, Turangalila (1949), features some of these techniques. As a German prisoner of war during World War II, Messiaen composed Quartet for the End of Time (1941), his most famous work. He also composed Twenty Glances at the Infant Jesus (1944) for piano, Oiseaux Exotiques (Exotic Birds, 1955) for piano and orchestra, and the opera St. Francis (1983).
Olivier Eugene Prosper Charles Messiaen was born on Dec. 10, 1908, in Avignon, France. In 1931, he became an organist at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Paris. He became a professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatory in 1942. Messiaen taught and greatly influenced many modern composers, including Pierre Boulez of France and Karlheinz Stockhausen of Germany. The most notable of his extensive writings on music is The Technique of My Musical Language (1956). Messiaen died on April 27, 1992.
