ABSTRACT
The Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d'ornithologie appears as the sum of the theoretical and aesthetic thought of a man who claimed to be at once a composer, ornithologist and rhythmist. Messiaen was prolific on many levels. Born in 1908 and educated at the Paris Conservatoire, he rapidly crafted a coherent intellectual system and an original compositional technique for himself, which he laid out in the important treatise Technique de mon langage musical, written remarkably early in his career, during the war, as an answer to questions from his first students. Yvonne Loriod and Alain Louvier provided some rationale for their additions and editorial choices. Harry Halbreich, pronounces himself entirely satisfied with this gigantic fifth volume. Its second part, on non-European birds, already valuable for a detailed analysis of the Sept Haïkaï, ends with 'a precious anthology of the composer's most beautiful ornithological memories; here is the domain of the freshest, purest poetry, a true Franciscan oasis.
