Studies On The Last Six Orchestral Works Of Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen (1908—1992) is a French composer, organist, music educator and a birdman, who is one of the greatest, influential composer with characteristic individualities in 20th century, and his works often relate closely to religion, human and nature.The subject of the doctoral dissertation studies on the composition techniques of the last six orchestral works of Olivier Messiaen after 1970s which are:Des canyons aux etoiles, Un vitrail et des oiseaux, La ville d' en haut, Eclairs sur l' au-dela, Un sourire and Concert a quatre. The dissertation is primarily consisted of seven chapters.After a brief introduction, the first chapter is about Messiaen's life and his compositions.The second chapter mention a general situation of the last six orchestral works. The third chapter introduce the name and the composition of bird songs in these works. In the fourth chapter, it is dissertated the main character of the music forms in these pieces, and also includes the detail of the feature and the structure. The fifth chapter introduc the pitch class techniques. The sixth chapter clarify the music time and rhythm systems. The seventh chapter discusses the timbre and the orchestration.In conclusion, there is analysis on the music langue and composing techniques such as the melodys, rhythms, music forms, modes of limited transpositions, colored chords and orchestral techniques, drawing out the main style and composing characters of these last six orchestral works of Messiaen after 1970s.