Olivier Messiaen - Chandos

Olivier Messiaen
COMPLETE ORGAN WORKS VOL IV
Timothy Byram-Wigfield
The Organ of St George’s Chapel
Windsor Castle
La Nativité du Seigneur
L’Ascension
Messe de la Pentecôte
Offrande au Saint Sacrement
Prélude
Diptyque
Verset pour la Fête de la Dédicace

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
COMPLETE ORGAN WORKS VOL IV
Timothy Byram-Wigfield
The Organ of St George’s Chapel
Windsor Castle
Disc I
La Nativité du Seigneur
1. I. La Vierge et l’Enfant [7:38]
2. II. Les Bergers [7:16]
3. III. Desseins éternels [6:53]
4. IV. Le Verbe [12:56]
5. V. Les Enfants de Dieu [3:28]
6. VI. Les Anges [3:47]
7. VII. Jésus accepte
la souffrance [5:13]
8. VIII. Les Mages [8:10]
9. IX. Dieu parmi nous [9:57]
Disc II
L’Ascension
1. I. Majesté du Christ demandant
sa gloire à son Père [6:42]
2. II. Alléluias sereins d’une âme
qui désire le ciel [5:36]
3. III. Transports de joie d’une
âme devant la gloire du Christ
qui est la sienne [5:15]
4. IV. Prière du Christ montant
vers son Père [10:32]
5. Diptyque [11:38]
Recorded on 11 & 15 -17
July 2008 in St George’s Chapel,
Windsor Castle by kind permission
of the Dean and Canons of Windsor
Producer: Paul Baxter
Engineer: Beth Baxter
24-bit digital editing: Simon Smith
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter
Instrument built & maintained
by Harrison & Harrison Ltd
Photograph editing: Raymond Parks
Cover image: Messiaen at the organ
of La Trinité in 1938 (private collection
of Nigel Simeone)
Design: John Christ
Booklet editor: John Fallas
Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK
www.delphianrecords.co.uk
10. Offrande au Saint Sacrement [4:37]
11. Prélude [8:39]
NB At the time of recording,
St George’s Chapel was cleared
of soft furnishings in order for its
stonework to be cleaned. This fact
is responsible for the extended
reverberation time and enhanced
frequency response which can be
observed on this disc compared to
other recordings made in the Chapel.
Messe de la Pentecôte
6. I. Entrée (Les langues de feu) [2:33]
7. II. Offertoire (Les choses
visibles et invisibles) [12:28]
8. III. Consécration (Le don
de Sagesse) [4:08]
9. IV. Communion (Les oiseaux
et les sources) [5:59]
10. V. Sortie (Le vent de l’Esprit) [3:36]
11. Verset pour la Fête de
la Dédicace [11:03]
Total playing time (2 CDs) [2:18:38]

Notes on the music
Messiaen had already been studying at the
Paris Conservatoire for seven years when
he joined Marcel Dupré’s preparatory organ
class in autumn 1927, aged eighteen (he
turned nineteen in December of that year);
he made very rapid progress, moving into
the senior class the following academic year
and winning a first prize for organ in the
summer 1929 concours.
From the autumn of 1929 onwards, Messiaen
was the regular deputy for the Trinité’s ailing
titulaire Charles Quef, but he wasn’t only earning
a living as a church organist. As recently
discovered correspondence with his cousin Paul
Mergier reveals, Messiaen was also playing the
organ in some unlikely venues: he worked at
the famous Parisian music-hall L’Olympia as a
cinema organist, and for a time in 1930 he was
even considered for a permanent job there (the
theatre’s administrator wrote to Dupré asking for
an opinion, and Messiaen wrote to his cousin
that ‘it interests me, but I don’t yet know if
anything will come of it’); he also played for
movies at the Théâtre Pigalle. 1
Early in 1930, during his final year of studies
at the Paris Conservatoire, Messiaen gave
the premiere of his Diptyque at La Trinité in
1 Anik Lesure and Claude Samuel (ed.), Olivier Messiaen: le livre
du centenaire (Lyon: Symétrie, 2008), p. 36.
2 They were noted in the Bulletin semestriel des Amis de l’Orgue,
December 1929, p. 2.
one of the concerts organised by Les
Amis de l’Orgue. This was an occasion of
considerable significance as it was the young
Messiaen’s concert debut in Paris. It took
place on 20 February 1930, and there is a
short biographical note on the young organistcomposer
in the programme: ‘Born in 1908,
Olivier Messiaen has studied music at the
Conservatoire where he won a premier prix
for organ (1929), premiers prix in fugue,
accompaniment and music history, a
deuxième prix for harmony and another for
composition. A pupil of M. Marcel Dupré,
with whom he continues to study the organ,
O. Messiaen gave two organ recitals last
summer at Tencin (Isère).’ These concerts,
in a small town just to the north-east of
Grenoble, were apparently Messiaen’s first
public organ recitals anywhere, given on
15 and 22 September 1929. 2
The Diptyque is described in the programme
as ‘unpublished’ but ‘in preparation from
Durand’ – it was issued in May 1930 and was
the first music of Messiaen’s to appear in
print. The work is described in a short note
by Messiaen with the mixture of musical and
theological commentary that was to become
characteristic:
The composer is at present a composition
pupil of Paul Dukas. The first part of this work
expresses the anguish and useless torment of
life. It is a prelude in C minor containing four
statements of the same theme, separated by
short developments. The second part takes up
the theme of the first and transforms it. An adagio
in C major, based on a single serene, ascending
phrase, it expresses the peace and charity of
Christian paradise.
As a student and during his early years
at La Trinité, Messiaen composed several
other short organ pieces: some of them
remain unpublished, but two have been
issued since his death. Offrande au Saint-
Sacrement probably dates from around 1930,
and the Prélude perhaps from a little later.
The Offrande is a characteristic Messiaen
meditation and the composer noted on the
manuscript that the music was ‘bien’. The
Prélude is a more complex and extended
piece, probably written in the early 1930s.
After an energetic campaign – supported
by letters of recommendation from Widor,
Tournemire and Dupré – Messiaen was
appointed to his post at La Trinité in
September 1931, and for the next six
decades he took his duties there very
seriously, but before his appointment
Messiaen had to reassure the Curé that
he wouldn’t play anything that might alarm
the parishioners. In a letter of 8 August
1931 he wrote about ‘dissonant music’:
When I was deputising at the Trinité, I know that
I sometimes exhibited tendencies which were a
little too modern, and I regret that now. I was only
twenty years old when I deputised for the first
time; I am now twenty-two-and-a-half, and at this
time of life one evolves very quickly. My current
view is that music should always search for the
new, but in works for chamber ensembles or
orchestra, where the imagination can run free.
For the organ, especially the organ in church, what
matters above all is the liturgy. The environment
and the instrument are not well suited to modern
music and it is important not to disturb the piety of
the faithful by using chords which are too anarchic.
[…] I can be well-behaved and classical in style.
I will adopt this and both you and the parishioners
will thus be satisfied. […] I completely share
your opinion about the calmness and moderation
required in a church service, musically speaking.
The Cavaillé-Coll organ in the church also
served as a kind of musical laboratory for the
young composer: he was able to try out new
ideas, to explore innovative sonorities, and
to develop his musical language accordingly.
However, three years after his appointment,
the organ underwent an extensive restoration.
By the time of the premiere of the original
orchestral version of L’Ascension (on 9
February 1935) the alternative for organ had
already been published and played in public
by Messiaen. This transcription had the newlycomposed
‘Transports de joie d’une âme

Notes on the music
devant la gloire du Christ qui est la sienne’,
written during 1934, as a replacement for the
original orchestral movement, ‘Alléluia sur la
trompette, Alléluia sur la cymbale’. Messiaen
considered this colourful and decidedly Dukaslike
orchestral scherzo unsuitable for the
organ, and substituted a new and dazzlingly
idiomatic toccata – the first of several such
pieces he was to write for organ.
Since the organ at La Trinité was out of
commission, the first performance of the
organ version, given on 29 January 1935
by Messiaen himself, was at the church of
Saint-Antoine-des-Quinze-Vingts (near the
Gare de Lyon). The recital was reviewed in
Le Ménestrel (3 February 1935) by a critic
identified only as ‘M.P.’: ‘Receiving its first
performance, M. Messiaen gave us his
L’Ascension, a poem in four movements,
written in a very refined style with colours
which often seem more orchestral than
organistic, and of a mystical tendency. This
serenity expresses itself sometimes through
quite turbulent music which is adjacent to
passages of great poetry, of real beauty.’
Félix Raugel in Le Monde musical (28 February
1935), after claiming (incorrectly) that the organ
version had been conceived first, went on to
describe Messiaen’s achievement in terms
that must surely have delighted the composer:
‘Messiaen has planned this symphonic
paraphrase on the Gospels in a way which
recalls the broad and luminous work of the
master glassmakers in our cathedrals. An
ardently religious soul expresses itself in these
passionate pieces with a tumultuous daring,
but also at times with a delicate sweetness.’
Messiaen played L’Ascension again at La
Trinité on 28 May 1935, as part of a recital he
shared with Marcel Dupré to inaugurate the
newly-restored organ, to which seven new
stops had been added while the instrument
was out of action.
Messiaen spent the summer of 1935 in
Grenoble, and it was there that he completed
La Nativité du Seigneur, his longest and
most original work to date. Lasting an
hour, it is a series of nine ‘meditations’ on
different aspects of the Nativity and the
Incarnation, including musical portraits of
familiar Christmas images – the Virgin and
Child, the shepherds, the Magi and the
Angels – but also more abstract theological
subjects: God’s predestined plan for us to be
his adopted children (‘Desseins éternels’),
the Word of God (‘La Verbe’), and the Word
made flesh in ‘Dieu parmi nous’, God among
us, the climactic piece in the cycle, a blazing
toccata based on three ideas that represent
God descending from Heaven (the opening
chords), His love for Jesus (a slower, gentler
theme), and a joyous, leaping tune first heard
in octaves. The result is one of Messiaen’s
most blazingly affirmative final movements.
For Messiaen, La Nativité was a work of the
greatest importance, and the score (published
in 1936) has a preface in which the composer
chose to publish for the first time an account
of the ‘modes of limited transposition’
that he devised as the essential vocabulary
for his harmonic and melodic language.
This two-page introduction is marks a crucial
stage in Messiaen’s musical development.
It was also his earliest attempt to explain his
compositional technique. But there was much
more to his thinking behind La Nativité. At
the first performance, each member of the
audience was given a small piece of paper
in which Messiaen set out his aims:
The emotion, the sincerity of the musical work:
To be at the service of the dogmas of
Catholic theology;
To be expressed by melodic and harmonic means:
the progressive growth of intervals, the chord
on the dominant, pedal notes, embellishments
and extended appoggiaturas.
Still more by rhythmic means: rhythms
immediately preceded or followed by their
augmentation and sometimes increased
by a short note-value (half the added value).
And above all by modes of limited transposition:
chromatic modes, used harmonically, the strange
colour of which derives from the limited number
of their possible transpositions (2, 3, 4 and 6
according to the mode).
Theological subject matter The finest, since it
contains all subjects.
And this abundance of technical means allows
the heart to overflow freely.
That final phrase encapsulates Messiaen’s
aesthetic position: all the technical procedures
and innovations in his compositions were
there to expand the emotional range of the
music and to enhance its expressive power,
to liberate the imagination – ‘to allow the
heart to overflow freely’.
Such was the extent of the press coverage
of La Nativité that Messiaen prepared a fourpage
leaflet containing extracts from reviews,
several of them by composers. 3 Georges Auric
admitted an interesting paradox: while he
was reluctant to accept some of Messiaen’s
ideas, he had a genuine enthusiasm for the
music: ‘It seems to me that on many issues,
we would be poles apart. […] So it is a great
delight for me to write that some of these
pieces are among the most beautiful and the
most moving which I have looked at in a long
time.’ Another composer, Henri Sauguet, was
bowled over:
In this work, comprising nine mystical meditations
for organ on the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus
Christ, Olivier Messiaen has achieved a perfect
3 La Nativité du Seigneur: Neuf Méditations pour Orgue par Olivier
Messiaen (édité chez Alphonse Leduc en quatre fascicules).
Extraits de Presse (Paris, c.1937-8).

Notes on the music
and brilliant mastery of his art, at the same
time as expressing a mystical sensibility of an
incomparable nobility and quality. We would like
to go into detail about each of these nine pieces,
to describe their beauty. They are written in an
extremely personal language, using a musical
vocabulary which Olivier Messiaen has created
himself, using particular modes which he calls
‘modes of limited transposition’. In La Nativité
du Seigneur, Olivier Messiaen has reached the
highest level of religious expression which music
can achieve. 4
Messiaen’s later view of La Nativité made it
clear just how significant a work it was in his
musical development: ‘With the use of Hindu
rhythms in La Nativité I produced the proof,
at least I believe I did, that it was possible
to write music for the organ other than in a
post-Franckist aesthetic.’ He added that the
work was partly an indirect homage to his
composition teacher Dukas – ‘perhaps to his
remarkable open-mindedness’. 5
La Nativité du Seigneur was first performed
complete at a concert given under the
auspices of Les Amis de l’Orgue in La Trinité
on 27 February 1936, played by three of
his friends (Jean Langlais, Jean-Jacques
Grunenwald and Daniel-Lesur); three
4 Review for La Revue hebdomadaire, quoted in Extraits de Presse.
5 Brigitte Massin, Olivier Messiaen: Une poétique du merveilleux
(Aix-en-Provence: Alinéa, 1989), p. 172.
months later, on 25 May, Line Zilgien gave
an all-Messiaen recital at La Trinité including
five movements from La Nativité. She was
another Dupré pupil, and was Messiaen’s
regular deputy until her early death from
cancer in 1954 (when she was succeeded by
Jean Bonfils). By the mid-1930s Messiaen’s
music was being played by other organists:
the second complete performance in Paris
of La Nativité was given in La Trinité on 23
February 1937 by the brilliant organist of Saint-
Augustin, André Fleury. The whole cycle was
played in public by the composer himself a
couple of months earlier, at Rouen Cathedral
(on 19 November 1936). Before the outbreak
of World War II it was largely through his
organ works that Messiaen became known
abroad: for example, André Marchal, André
Fleury, Noëllie Pierront and the composer
himself played his music in London; and
Virginie Schildge Bianchini gave a recital in
New York (16 May 1938) which ended with
four pieces by Messiaen.
From 1945 onwards, the pattern of Sunday
Masses at La Trinité included a midday Mass
reserved for ‘modern music’. On Pentecost
Sunday (13 May) 1951, Messiaen gave the
first performance of two movements from his
new Messe de la Pentecôte. He introduced
the work to the congregation in the May issue
of the Trinité’s parish magazine:
For the midday mass, reserved for modern
music, I have composed two pieces specially: an
offertoire and a sortie. The offertoire comments
on the words ‘Les choses visibles et invisibles’
(‘All things visible and invisible’) which we recite
each Sunday in the Creed, and which are applied
perfectly to the kingdom of the Holy Spirit, an
inner kingdom of invisible grace. The sombre
colours of the registration, the construction with
‘rhythmic characters’, the alternation of the 16-
foot bassoon which growls in the extreme bass,
with the piccolo and tierce making the sounds of
distant bells in an extremely high register, depict
the workings of grace. The sortie, entitled ‘Le Vent
de l’Esprit’ (‘The Wind of the Spirit’), uses a text
from the Acts of the Apostles: ‘A powerful wind
from heaven filled the entire house’ (taken from
the Epistle of the day). A fortissimo, at first very
violent, rises up in rapid swirls, like a chorus of
larks as a symbol of joy. 6
With the Messe de la Pentecôte, Messiaen
set out to preserve and refine some of his
most daring improvisations from the years
immediately after the end of World War II. He
wrote about its origins in Tome IV of the Traité
de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie:
The work was written in 1950 but improvised long
before then. Here is its history: I became organist
of the grand orgue at the Trinité (Paris) in 1930
6 Olivier Messiaen, ‘Orgue’, La Trinité: journal paroissial, May
1951, p.3.
[recte 1931] when I was just 22 years old. My
duties required me to play short improvisations
on plainsong texts, especially the verses and
responses at Vespers. For other services I always
played written pieces (Nicolas de Grigny, J.S.
Bach, modern music). From 1945 onwards, at the
midday Mass, I was allowed to play exclusively
modern music, whether it was the works of my
contemporaries or pieces I had written myself.
I also improvised, in order more fully to become
a part of the three great divisions of the Blessed
Sacrifice: Offertory, Consecration, Communion;
and to put into sharper relief the mysteries of the
liturgical year, the grace proper to each mystery,
the colour, poetry and particular feeling of each
time and each feast; these improvisations gradually
became ‘one’ improvisation, always forgotten,
always found again, and always repeated: the
terrifying groans of the Beast of the Apocalypse
alternating with the songs of thrushes and
blackbirds, the sounds of the water and of the
wind in the trees with the religious meditation and
the storms of joy of the Holy Spirit. Hindu rhythms
were mixed with the neumes of plainchant, choirs
of larks with Tibetan trumpets […] the strangest
and the most shimmering sounds were alongside
the clearest permutations or rhythmic interversions.
The known and the unknown were both to be
found there, the visible and the invisible, the
world of men and the world of angels. And so it
was that the Messe de la Pentecôte was born.
Without being my best work, it is without doubt
the one which is closest to my true nature, and

Notes on the music
the only one intended entirely for my organ at the
Trinité (of which it uses all the timbres and their
combinations), since it had been improvised many
times there, during the years 1948 and 1949.
I wrote it down on manuscript paper in 1950.
Then I gave up improvising altogether. 7
Happily, any abandonment of improvisation
was short-lived. But apart from the Messe de
la Pentecôte, there is little evidence for what
Messiaen’s liturgical improvisations in the late
1940s sounded like. One account, however,
is especially evocative: the writer Julien Green
made a note in his diary on 18 April 1949
about an improvisation that suggests the kind
of blazing originality so characteristic of the
Messe de la Pentecôte:
Heard an improvisation by Messiaen on the radio.
Music which one could say was composed after the
end of the world. It is of monstrous beauty, opening
up immense caverns where rivers flow, where
mounds of precious stones glitter. We do not know
where we are – in India perhaps. The composer was
playing on the organ of the Trinité. Never have the
vaults of this hideous edifice heard more disturbing
sounds. Occasionally I had the impression that hell
was opening, suddenly gaping wide. There were
cataracts of strange noises that dazzled the ear. 8
Plainsong inspired many of Messiaen’s
improvisations, and he turned to it again when he
wrote Verset pour la Fête de la Dédicace, based
on a plainsong Alleluia set against a chorus of
birdsong (the song thrush). Despite its title, this
short work was not written for the dedication
of a church but as a test piece for the Paris
Conservatoire. The organ concours for which it
was composed took place on 13 June 1961, and
the Lebanese organist Raffi Ourgandjian was
among those to win a premier prix.
Messiaen was fiercely loyal to La Trinité over
six decades. In the church’s parish magazine
for March 1991, a year before his death, there
was an interview to celebrate his sixty years
as organist there. Aptly titled ‘Le musicien de
la joie’, it included a question about whether
all of his works were written to the glory
of God. The composer gave a touching and
modest reply: ‘I have written pure music (for
the purposes of technical experimentation),
and music of a secular character. I sometimes
regret that a little. Music composed to sing
the mysteries of my faith seems more useful
for my contemporaries. Perhaps they will be
grateful to me for that.’
© 2009 Nigel Simeone
Nigel Simeone is Professor of Historical
Musicology at the University of Sheffield.
He is co-author with Peter Hill of the
biography Messiaen (Yale University Press,
2005). The revised French edition of this
book (Olivier Messiaen, Fayard, 2008) was
awarded the Prix René Dumesnil by the
Académie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 2008.
7 Olivier Messiaen, Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie,
Tome IV (Paris: Leduc, 1997), p. 83.
8 From Julien Green, Journal (Paris: Plon, 1951). Vol 5: ‘Le
Revenant (1946-1949)’.

The Organ of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
Harrison & Harrison of Durham, 1965/2002
Pedal organ 20 stops
1. Sub Bourdon 32
2. Open Diapason 16
3. Bourdon 16
4. Dulciana 16
5. Quintadena (from Swell) 16
6. Principal (18 from no. 2) 8
7. Flute (18 from no. 3) 8
8. Dulciana (18 from no. 4) 8
9. Fifteenth 4
10. Röhrflöte 4
11. Open Flute 2
12. Mixture (19. 22. 26. 29) IV ranks
13. Double Trombone (18 from no. 14) 32
14. Trombone 16
15. Fagotto 16
16. Tromba (18 from no. 14) 8
17. Bassoon (18 from no. 15) 8
18. Octave Tromba (18 from no. 16) 4
19. Schalmei 4
20. Kornet 2
i. Choir to Pedal
ii. Great to Pedal
iii. Swell to Pedal
iv. Solo to Pedal
Choir organ 15 stops
21. Quintadena 8
22. Gedackt 8
23. Principal 4
24. Spitzflöte 4
25. Wald Flute 2
26. Sesquialtera (12. 17.) II ranks
27. Cimbel (29. 33. 36.) III ranks
28. Krummhorn 8
v. Tremulant
On the Screen
29. Diapason 8
30. Lieblichflöte 8
31. Octave 4
32. Lieblichflöte 4
33. Super Octave 2
34. Mixture (19. 22. 26. 29.) IV ranks
35. Trompette 8
vi. Swell to Choir
vii. Solo to Choir
Great organ 13 stops
36. Double Diapason 16
37. Open Diapason I 8
38. Open Diapason II 8
39. Stopped Diapason 8
40. Principal 4
41. Open Flute 4
42. Fifteenth 2
43. Block Flute 2
44. Cornet II–V ranks
45. Mixture (19. 22. 26. 29.) IV ranks
46. Double Trumpet 16
47. Trumpet 8
48. Clarion 4
viii. Choir to Great
ix. Swell to Great
x. Solo to Great
xi. Great Reeds on Pedal
xii. Screen Choir on Great
Swell organ 16 stops
49. Quintadena 16
50. Violin Diapason 8
51. Lieblich Gedackt 8
52. Echo Gamba 8
53. Voix Celestes (from ten. c.) 8
54. Principal 4
55. Rohr Flöte 4
56. Nazard 2 2 /3
57. Fifteenth 2
58. Tierce 1 3 /5
59. Mixture (22. 26. 29. 33.) IV ranks
60. Oboe 8
61. Vox Humana 8
62. Contra Fagotto 16
63. Cornopean 8
64. Clarion 4
xiii. Tremulant
xiv. Octave
xv. Solo to Swell
Solo organ 8 stops
65. Cor de Nuit 8
66. Concert Flute 4
67. Viole d’Orchestre 8
68. Viole Celeste 8
69. Corno di Bassetto 8
70. Orchestral Oboe 8
xvi. Tremulant
71. Orchestral Trumpet (unenclosed) 8
72. Orchestral Clarion (unenclosed) 4
xvii. Octave
xviii. Sub Octave
xix. Unison Off
Eight toe pistons to the Pedal Organ
Ten thumb pistons to the Choir Organ
Eight thumb pistons to the Great Organ
Eight thumb pistons to the Swell Organ
Eight toe pistons to the Swell Organ
Six thumb pistons to the Solo Organ
Eight thumb General Pistons, duplicated by transfer
on to Swell toe pistons
Two adjustable pistons for all the couplers
Eight lockable memories to the Divisional Pistons
Thirty-two lockable memories to the General Pistons
Stepper thumb and toe pistons (forward and reverse)
Reversible pistons to Great to Pedal (thumb and toe),
Swell to Pedal, Swell to Great (thumb and toe), Choir
to Pedal, Solo to Pedal, Solo to Great, Choir to Great,
Swell to Choir, Solo to Choir, Solo to Swell
General cancel piston
© 2005 St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
All rights reserved

Timothy Byram-Wigfield
Timothy Byram-Wigfield
is Director of Music at St
George’s Chapel, Windsor
Castle, an appointment he
has held since January 2004.
In this capacity he directs
the famous choir of men
and boys in its schedule of
daily services, as well as providing music for
occasions of royal and national significance.
As well as directing music for the annual
service of the Knights of the Garter, he was
privileged to direct the music for the Blessing
service following the marriage of HRH Prince
Charles and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall in
2005. More recently, the Choir has taken part
in events to mark HM The Queen’s eightieth
birthday, and sung at the wedding of Peter
Philips and Autumn Kelly. The Choir has also
made a number of recordings on the Delphian
and Naxos labels.
As a choral conductor, Timothy Byram-Wigfield
has worked with a number of large-scale and
symphony choruses. From 1993 to 1998 he
trained the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Chorus,
preparing works for performances conducted
by Sir Charles Mackerras, Ivor Bolton, Nicholas
Kraemer, and Markus Stenz, amongst others.
Alongside his work in Cambridge from 1999,
as Director of Music at Jesus College, he was
Conductor of the Northampton Bach Choir.
He has deputised for rehearsals of many other
choruses, including the London Bach Choir.
He has recently been appointed the Associate
Director of the Oxford Bach Choir.
As an organist he has given recitals in
many cathedrals in the UK, and toured to
the USA, France and the Netherlands. A
regular recording artist for Delphian Records,
his recordings have consistently met with
critical acclaim, including a disc of transcribed
overtures from the celebrated Lewis organ
in the Kelvingrove Hall, Glasgow (DCD34004),
and a disc of music by the Edwardian Alfred
Hollins (DCD34044). In 2009 he will record
a second volume of overtures for Delphian,
at the organ of Rochdale Town Hall.
He is also active as a pianist, singer,
composer and choral arranger. He teaches
piano and organ at Eton College, and is a
regular examiner for the diploma examinations
presented by the Royal College of Organists.
Messiaen organ music on Delphian
Olivier Messiaen: Organ Works Vol I
Les Corps glorieux, Le Banquet céleste & Apparition de l’Eglise éternelle
Timothy Byram-Wigfield
The Organ of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
DCD34024
Timothy Byram-Wigfield presents Messiaen’s ground-breaking Les Corps
glorieux on the organ of St George’s Chapel, with its protean personality.
Byram-Wigfield is an ideal exponent of this work and its extremities: from
his sensitive approach to its spiritual narrative, to his thrilling handling of its
gargantuan climaxes, the listener cannot fail to be drawn into Messiaen’s
world of colour. This volume inaugurates Delphian’s survey of Messiaen’s
complete published organ music, in which the early music is performed by
Byram-Wigfield and the late works by Michael Bonaventure.
Olivier Messiaen: Organ Works Vol III
Le Livre du Saint Sacrement
Michael Bonaventure
The Rieger Organ of St Giles’ Cathedral Edinburgh
DCD34076 (2 discs)
The seeds for Messiaen’s final organ work were sown during an
inspirational trip to Israel in 1984. Over the course of the following
twelve months, Messiaen found improvisation leading him back
to composition after the exhausting labours that had produced his
mighty opera Saint François d’Assise. The Livre du Saint Sacrement
became Messiaen’s grand farewell to his own instrument, and Michael
Bonaventure performs it from memory here on the Rieger instrument at
St Giles’ Cathedral, an organ of immense range and apocalyptic power.
‘a magnificent achievement … utterly compelling’
— BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Choice, Proms 2008 edition

DCD34078