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Composer: Messiaen, Olivier

Les offrandes oubliees

Conductor: Markl, Jun

Lyon National Orchestra

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Playing Time: 00:01:20

Catalogue Number: NVF0088

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Messiaen wrote Les offrandes oubliees (The Forgotten Offerings), his first published orchestral work, in the summer of 1930, just after completing his studies at the Paris Conservatoire. Its premiere six months later attracted much press attention; the critic Guy Chastel remarked in Les Amities (1931) on the bold originality of the music, noting that such sustained, emotional music inspired by religious faith was refreshingly unusual on the contemporary music scene.

The work is subtitled 'a symphonic meditation' and is split into three parts: two extremely slow sections flanking a violent, ferocious one. In a short poem at the front of the score, Messiaen describes the slow, sad opening as a depiction of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross; in the middle section, he likens man's 'breathless, frenzied, ceaseless descent into sin' to a descent into the grave; and the ending, marked 'with great pity, and great love', represents the Eucharist, and reminds us of Christ's love for mankind.