1. Messiaen in 1942: a working musician in occupied Paris / Nigel Simeone -- 2. Love, mad love and the Point Sublime : the Surrealist poetics of Messiaen's Harawi / Robert Sholl -- 3. Messiaen's journey towards asceticism / Paul McNulty -- 4. Forms of love: Messiaen's aesthetics of Eblouissement / Sander van Maas -- 5. Messiaen's mysterious birds / Allen Forte -- 6. Messiaen's Catalogue d'Oiseaux : a musical dumbshow? / Jeremy Thurlow -- 7. The impossible charm of Messiaen's Chronochromie / Amy Bauer -- 8. Composer as performer, recording as text : towards a 'manner of realisation' for Messiaen's music / Andrew Shenton -- 9. 'The art of the most intensive contrast' : Olivier Messiaen's mosaic form up to its apotheosis in Saint Francois d'Assise / Stefan Keym -- 10. Two paths to paradise: reform in Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise / Robert Fallon -- 11. Messiaen and the twentieth century / Arnold Whittall

This collection of scholarly essays offers new cultural, historical, biographical and analytical perspectives on Messiaen's musical œuvre from 1941 to 1992. The volume includes: a snapshot of Messiaen's life in occupied France; a study of the Surrealist poetics of Messiaen's song cycle Harawi; a chapter on Messiaen's iconoclastic path to the avant-garde heritage that he bequeathed to his pupils; discussion on Messiaen's place in twentieth-century music; and detailed analysis of specific works, including his opera St Francois d'Assise. The chapters provide fresh insights on the origins, style and poetics of Messiaen's music, reflecting and expanding upon the broad range of Messiaen's own interdisciplinary interests