...This chapter examines Olivier Messiaen's music drawing upon bird song. Arguing against François-Bernard Mâche's bioacoustic reading of Messiaen, it stresses the particularity of the temporal mode invoked by the composer. Messiaen's music speaks in a voice similar to those of apocalyptic utterances...

...Whether to categorize Olivier Messiaen’s music as “mystical” or “theological” has been an ongoing historiographical question for several decades. In this chapter, Stephen Schloesser argues that Messiaen’s shift from the mystical to the theological occurred around the year 1935, marked by Messiaen’s...

...This chapter attempts to answer the question about what Olivier Messiaen exactly had in mind with his compositions of religious music. It shows that there was a gradual shift in Messiaen's musical localization of religion. While his earlier works emphasize the sincerity of feelings, his later...

...This chapter examines the compositional side of the music of dazzlement of Olivier Messiaen's religious music. It analyzes five passages from La Transfiguration and suggests though that there are great mutual differences between them there are also a number of tendencies...

...This chapter examines the music of dazzlement in Olivier Messiaen's religious music composition based on the phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion. It explains that Marion contrasts everyday experience to two exceptional phenomena that constitute a frame that may help interpret the phenomenon...

...This chapter examines the conflict between Olivier Messiaen's testimony on the hyperreligious qualities and the technicity in his music. It proposes a concept of technics that may be used for analyzing the singularity of breakthrough together with both structural possibility and empirical cases...

...This epilogue sums up the key findings about the religious music composition of Olivier Messiaen. It suggests that Messiaen's is far from exemplifying a Christian music of asceticism or contemptus mundi and that it remains deeply affirmative. In this respect, his work is close...

...This introductory chapter explains the coverage and objective of this book, which is to examine the role of French composer Olivier Messiaen on the reinvention of religious music. This book is driven by the conviction that one can aspire to come close to the phenomenon of the musicosacral...

...This chapter examines the connection and convergence between the religious music composition of Olivier Messiaen and the works and philosophy of Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. Messiaen considers von Balthasar a major influence. However, the music of Messiaen appears to fall beyond...

...This chapter examines an aspect of breakthrough in Olivier Messiaen's religious music composition concerning listening “here” and listening in the “beyond”. It analyzes the Judeo-Christian tradition relevant to music hearing and listening. These are the circumcision of the ear and the notion...