Book Review
Nov. 13th, 2011 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Life of Messiaen
by Christopher Dingle
This short biography of Olivier Messiaen, one of my favorite composers, was fascinating and enjoyable to read. I was pretty impressed with how much ground Dingle was able to cover in just 274 pages. Not only does he recount Messiaen's life, he also delves into important factors in Messiaen's experience and personality. Dingle is extremely good at explaining both the development of Messiaen's compositional techniques and the complex and nuanced way his very personal Catholic faith guided and influenced his music. I also admired the sensitive manner in which Dingle addressed the tragedy of Messiaen's first wife's illness and death. I feel that Dingle has given me a wonderful window into Messiaen's music.
This book also left me with a new perspective on why Messiaen's music is so different from that of the other 20th century avant-garde composers and why it appeals to me so much more. His music is just as radical and gnarly as that of say, Boulez or Ligeti. But, unlike many of his peers, Messiaen composed not from a place solely of academic intellectual rigor, but of deep spiritual and emotional rigor. It's not that Messiaen's music doesn't have cool intellectual aspects - it does. It's that Messiaen wasn't just about devising and applying new intellectual schemes to music-making, he was also very much about expressing important ideas and emotions.
by Christopher Dingle
This short biography of Olivier Messiaen, one of my favorite composers, was fascinating and enjoyable to read. I was pretty impressed with how much ground Dingle was able to cover in just 274 pages. Not only does he recount Messiaen's life, he also delves into important factors in Messiaen's experience and personality. Dingle is extremely good at explaining both the development of Messiaen's compositional techniques and the complex and nuanced way his very personal Catholic faith guided and influenced his music. I also admired the sensitive manner in which Dingle addressed the tragedy of Messiaen's first wife's illness and death. I feel that Dingle has given me a wonderful window into Messiaen's music.
This book also left me with a new perspective on why Messiaen's music is so different from that of the other 20th century avant-garde composers and why it appeals to me so much more. His music is just as radical and gnarly as that of say, Boulez or Ligeti. But, unlike many of his peers, Messiaen composed not from a place solely of academic intellectual rigor, but of deep spiritual and emotional rigor. It's not that Messiaen's music doesn't have cool intellectual aspects - it does. It's that Messiaen wasn't just about devising and applying new intellectual schemes to music-making, he was also very much about expressing important ideas and emotions.
