Un Sourire

Olivier Messiaen was born on 10 December 1908 in Avignon into a literary family. His father was an eminent translator of English literature and his mother, Cécile Sauvage, was a published poet. Messiaen displayed a precocious musical talent from an early age, being accepted by the time he was eleven into the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied piano, composition and organ. After graduation he served as organist at the Église de la Trinité in Paris from 1931 until his death, and his own contribution to the organ repertoire is arguably greater than that of any other composer since Bach. A very simple melody in the violins, and an exotic birdsong repeated by the xylophones, the woodwinds, and the horns. In spite of the mourning, the suffering, the hunger, the cold, the incomprehension, and the proximity of death, Mozart always smiled. His music smiled too. It is because of this I permitted myself, in all humility, to entitle my homage: "A Smile.")