Messiaen

[ mes-yahn ]

noun

1. O·li·vier Eu·gène Pros·per Charles [aw-lee-, vyey, , œ, -, zhen, p, r, aw-, sper, sh, a, r, l], 1908–92, French composer and organist.

Messiaen

/ mɛsjɑ̃ /

noun

1. MessiaenOlivier19081992MFrenchMUSIC: composerMUSIC: organist Olivier (ɔlivje). 1908–92, French composer and organist. His music is distinguished by its rhythmic intricacy; he was influenced by Hindu and Greek rhythms and bird song

Example Sentences

In the late ’50s, Jones relocated to Paris, where he studied composition with the highly regarded teacher Nadia Boulanger and composer Olivier Messiaen.

From Los Angeles Times

Bullock took a spectacular deep dive into a seldom-heard song cycle by Olivier Messiaen, an hour of agony and ecstasy full of obscurities about the European Tristan myth, using a French text peppered with Quechua, an indigenous South American language.

From Los Angeles Times

A lot has been made of the circumstances of Messiaen’s hourlong cycle, for which he wrote his own song texts.

From Los Angeles Times

Messiaen here began his development of a spectacular new musical language for a picture of ecstatic love that transcends death.

From Los Angeles Times

He clearly relishes soft playing, with sensitive effects of distant bells and moonlit drizzles in Messiaen’s “La Colombe” and “Le Nombre Léger,” and a murmured sotto voce in Chopin’s Op.

From New York Times