Olivier Messiaen (Les Grandes Répétitions, 1965)

“Messiaen was approached in October 1963 by André Malraux, Minister of Cultural Affairs under Charles de Gaulle, with a commission for a sacred work to commemorate the dead of the two World Wars. Originally envisioned as a work for chorus, large orchestra and brass, to be performed in June 1964 at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and at Notre-Dame de Chartres, the concept of the work and projected date of performance changed several times over the following year. Composition began in early July 1964, while Messiaen was vacationing at the Lac de Pétichet in the Hautes-Alpes, and the orchestration was completed early in January 1965. The title is taken from the penultimate line of the Nicene Creed: “Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi sæculi“ (And I await the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the coming age). It was premiered in the Sainte-Chapelle at 11:00 in the morning on 7 May 1965, and was performed for the second time in the morning of 20 June of the same year following a Solemn Mass at Chartres Cathedral and in the presence of President Charles de Gaulle, who warmly congratulated the composer after the performance. Both performances were conducted by Serge Baudo, and the general rehearsal in Chartres on 19 June was filmed for television, later broadcast in the series Les grandes répétitions. In his prefaces to the second and third movements, Messiaen also paraphrases passages from “The Resurrection,“ from the supplement to the third part of the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas. “