Music TheoryPrint

Olivier Messiaen

Fête des belles eaux

Fête des belles eaux (French: Festival of the beautiful waters) is a 1936 suite of incidental music by French composer Olivier Messiaen. The suite, commissioned for the 1937 Paris Exposition, has

Structure#

This composition is in eight movements and takes approximately thirty minutes to perform. The movements are as follows: The fourth movement was later rearranged for cello and piano as the fifth movement (“Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus”) of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps; elements of the movement were also incorporated into a discarded movement of Les corps glorieux entitled Vie pour Dieu des ressuscités.

  • Olivier Messiaen: Fête des belles eaux (1937) (YouTube)
  • Fête des belles eaux synchronised to a facsimile of the manuscript fair copy by Claire Delbos (YouTube)
  • Fête des belles eaux synchronised to the Leduc edition of 2003 (YouTube)
Composer
Olivier Messiaen