ABSTRACT
By the time of the Second World War, the apologetic dimension of Messiaen's music, and especially his written and spoken glosses, had become unmistakeable. The violence of the critical reception to Messiaen's wartime works and the ensuing polemics known as le cas Messiaen can be seen as the logical consequence of both the content and above all the style of his highly personal form of apologetics. Following Messiaen's own self-analytical method, much musicology has concentrated on mapping his techniques with theological concepts. In the post-war years Messiaen's principal form of public aesthetic engagement arguably became his pedagogy at the Paris Conservatoire, Darmstadt and Tanglewood. The chapter suggests that Messiaen's evangelizing embrace of modernism, both in terms of musical technique and intellectual engagement, can provide an example for contemporary religious composers seeking alternatives to the minimalism of Part, Gorecki or Tavener.
