Fauvettes de l'Hérault

Around 1960, Olivier Messiaen began a large-scale concerto based on the birds of the Hérault region (“Oiseaux de l’Hérault”) for piano, various soloists and orchestra. Although the project remained unfinished, the solo piano part was quite developed. The Olivier Messiaen Foundation entrusted Roger Muraro, a renowned interpreter of Messiaen’s piano works, with organizing the sketches and manuscripts found in the composer’s archives. This new publication emerged from Muraro’s research.

The study that opens the volume describes his methods in detail, discussing, among other issues, the relationship of this work to the later Sept Haïkaï. Richly illustrated with a number of facsimiles, musical examples and photographs, Muraro’s introduction retraces the origins and historic context of the work, invites the reader to enter the composer’s workshop, and offers suggestions for performance. Fauvettes de l’Hérault – Concert des garrigues for solo piano is a “concerto without orchestra” that blends reference to Claude Debussy, a thinly veiled homage to Yvonne Loriod, new birdsong from the Hérault region, and the vast palette of rhythm, timbre, and colour that are typical of Olivier Messiaen’s musical universe.