I would be very interested to see a discussion thread opened on Olivier Messiaen's music. More specificly any views on the following would be appreciated: 1. Having bought recently Kent Nagano's stunning account of Messiaen's "Saint Francois d'Assise" (and listening to it instead of putting it in my "in-tray" as some do) I am convinced that this is a truly masterpiece, summing up all his styles and techniques and setting them in a fresh new light. How do others rate this opera vs his total output? 2. What do people think of Messiaen's instrumentation techniques? To me, from this point of view, Messiaen was a true genius with no limits to his imagination while keeping it well checked under the guidance of a perfect ear for sound quality and musicality. Being one of the major forces in the emancipation of percussion instruments in classical music, he is certainly to be ranked with other instrumentation masters like Mozart, Ravel, Rimsky Korsakov, Berg to name only a few. 3. But for a few of his very early works Messiaen was never much tempted by classical forms such as sonata or fugue. Indeed, as Boulez put it: "Messiaen doesn't compose, he juxtaposes". By what ways did Messiaen secure "structural integrity" of his works, and how far did he succeede? Interestingly enough, his last work, the "Concert a Quatre" partially goes back some of the older forms, e.g. the final movement can be described as some kind of rondo. 4. Messiaen always made a point of perceiving harmony and colour as two phenomena originating from the same source, i.e. E major is a vast Bordeaux red. I must confess that my poor mortal mind doesn't quite follow him there. Is there anybody who can "enlighten" me? [log in to unmask]