From the sound of the organ: improvising, recreating, and composing from the organ loft of la Trinité
Based on the example of Olivier Messiaen, who held the post of organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris for 60 years and my own current work in the same position, this article seeks to rethink the activity of the creative organist in his organ loft and place him in a unique position in the field of musical creation at the crossroads of improvisation and composition. Thanks to new sources, the study and re-enactment of Messiaen’s practices at his keyboards leads us to question these two categories and their hybridizations. Their confrontation raises questions on the relationships between instrument, sound, and writing, on which the organ offers a unique vantage point. Examples from my Études pour orgue (2006-2015) show how the interaction of invention with the organ’s complex sound phenomena may renew the ties between improvisation and composition and interrogate contemporary practices of musical creation.