Born on December 10, 1908 in Avignon, France, Olivier Messiaen attended the Paris Conservatoire in 1919 and by the 1930s had already distinguished himself with multiple first prizes in organ, improvisation, and composition. At the young age of twenty-two Messiaen became the organist at La Sainte Trinité in Paris, where Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s instrument played an important influence in his organ registration choices. La Nativité du Seigneur, composed in 1935, marked the beginning of Messiaen’s second composition period where his modal harmonic language was solidified as well as his rhythmic language. The modal language, which this project concerns, is especially important, given that Messiaen provided an outline and introduction to the use thereof in his preface with the score. 

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The knowledge that Messiaen experienced synesthesia is new to some but not to most who are familiar with his writing and musical inspiration. Notable elements of Messiaen’s condition include that the colors associated with his harmony remained unchanged throughout his life, the condition shaped his musical output both consciously and subconsciously, and color remained the primary aspect on how he perceives and assesses music. Messiaen became more and more vocal about his condition and its effect on his music throughout his life. Although his earlier musical works do not discuss color, and his Technique de mon langage musical (1944) only mentions color briefly as a side-note, his later works become more expressly specific about the colors that shaped or inspired Messiaen’s output.  Other works continue to present composer notes and prefaces on color influence until finally culminating in his seventh volume of Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie: (1949-1992), which, according to Yvonne Loriod, could have been written as early as 1970-75. In this final volume, not yet translated from French, Messiaen provided painstaking detail to the colors he associated with sound collections. Not only does each mode have a color collection associated with the pitch collection, but each unique transposition has specific color collections as well.