La Nativité du Seigneur

In the years following his appointment as organiste titulaire at the church of La Sainte-Trinité in Paris, the twentysomething Messiaen wrote a number of powerful works on sacred themes. His 1933 orchestral work, L’Ascension, became his first organ cycle. His second, from 1935, was this contemplative masterpiece, La Nativité du Seigneur (The Birth of the Saviour), a series of musical tableaux in which each movement meditates on an image or scene from the nativity story, from virgin birth to Epiphany. (Number symbolism is at play throughout this work—the number of movements, for example, corresponding to the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy.) A devout Catholic, Messiaen in this work shows us the building blocks of his musical style: his use of modes, rather than the traditional key relationships, gives rise to those mysterious, floating harmonies, heard from the outset in "La Vierge et l'Enfant" (“The Virgin and Child”); while his rhythms, drawn from Hindu and Carnatic musical traditions, add to the cycle’s hypnotic, mystical quality. Hear Messiaen’s love of birdsong, too, in the joyful outbursts of the final movement, "Dieu parmi nous" (“God among us”), that lead to the work’s triumphant climax.