ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a reasonably thorough background to, and examines the works of Olivier Messiaen's final years; an exposition of what is there. It argues that Messiaen's music underwent, or was undergoing, a discernible change of style in his final years. The book utilizes the works in question to examine certain characteristics of Messiaen's music in detail. Messiaen's music resolutely refuses to be placed into any convenient boxes and the dogmatic application of any one analytical method would be hopelessly inadequate. Messiaen's own writings, primarily in Technique de mon langage musical and the Traite de Rythme, de Couleur et d'Ornithologie are, of course, enormously valuable, but they can cause varying degrees of analytical blindness. The book explores aspects of Messiaen's colour associations as a useful metaphor, but, due to the highly personal nature of the phenomenon.
