ABSTRACT
Messiaen was surely a happy man, secure in his faith, and manifestly thrilled by his studies, his teaching, his duties as an organist and, of course, by composing. Messiaen particularly commended the choice of bells in the Symphonie fantastique, even if Berlioz himself was so accustomed to substituting a piano for unobtainable bells that he printed the part in the full score as for piano. Sharing roots in the southern part of France, Messiaen assumed that Berlioz loved nature as much as he did. But Berlioz would never have explored rhythm so systematically as Messiaen did, nor would he have been the least interested in the rhythmic intricacies of remote cultures. Brahms meant little or nothing to Messiaen and did not reach him in his childhood. Messiaen was more fortunate than his teacher, for he did not suffer from the destructive self-criticism that caused Dukas to leave us only a tiny handful of works.
