ABSTRACT
This chapter features prefaces to works, interviews, published correspondence, and documentaries and filmed performances. It includes the prefaces written by Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen and Olivier Latry for works published after Messiaen's death. Each of the opera's tableaux includes a synopsis of its drama and a description (Analyse) of its musical-dramatic content. Messiaen discusses each tableau chronologically and points out important dramatic moments and the musical techniques he uses to reinforce them. A preface by Loriod-Messiaen that provides a backdrop to the piece as well as a summary of the piece's form and musical elements. Messiaen emphasizes that the complex sounds and timbres of the piece color the music's durations. One of the prefaces by Messiaen mentions the different compositional techniques that occur during the course of a piece, such as the Indian rhythms dedicated to the three Shakti in the first and seventh movements.
