ABSTRACT
More than twenty years have now passed since Olivier Messiaen's death in 1992. In the field of scholarship since then, the imperative identified by Roger Nichols for 'much real thinking', the need to get beyond the composer himself, has increasingly borne rich fruit, including now the chapters included in the two volumes of Messiaen Perspectives. This first volume of perspectives falls into two parts that focus on the formation of several of Messiaen's works and the formation of Messiaen as an artist. It is essentially chronological, the focus moving through Messiaen's career from the 1930s to the 1970s. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that the book is dedicated to Yvonne Loriod, placing consideration of her impact literally at its centre and providing a discography of her commercial recordings.
