This study creates a rich exegesis of “Première Communion de la Vierge” from Olivier Messiaen’s (1908–1992) piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (1944) to show how Messiaen attempted to translate musical symbolism into religious meaning. The first two sections provide background and context on the work, revise previous scholarship, and show how this piece (no XI) functions as a theological hinge in the cycle. The genesis and sources of the Vingt Regards, using previously unavailable archival material, are examined to provide new insight into both the cycle and the “Première Communion.” The aesthetic scaffolding of this piece is then detailed through the relationship between Messiaen’s music and the theology of Dom Columba Marmion, Messiaen’s idealist relationship with his mother, the poetess Cécile Sauvage (1883–1927), and surrealism.
The next three sections provide a hermeneutic analysis of the work. They examine how Messiaen employed his radical musical language to create ‘views’ [regards] of the interiority, joy, ecstasy, and intimacy of Mary’s relationship with her unborn child. This study brings the sources above and musical analysis into productive engagement to reveal how Messiaen created a unique refreshment of Marian iconography. It uses this "Première Communion" as a litmus test of the ways in which Messiaen engaged with but sought to exceed the conceptual scaffolding that inspired it. This study questions how symbolism becomes religious reality for the viewer/listener, and it reveals how Messiaen attempted to overcome this barrier between portrayal and experience and use music to create an experience or knowledge of faith.
Author Biography
Robert Sholl studied in Melbourne, Paris, and London, and teaches at The Royal Academy of Music and the University of West London. His has written extensively on twentieth-century music, including Olivier Messiaen: A Critical Biography (Reaktion, 2024) which was awarded a Certificate of Merit in the 2025 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in the category Best Historical Research in Recorded Classical, Messiaen in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2023) which received an honourable mention in the RMA/Cambridge University edited book prize, Messiaen Studies (Cambridge, 2007) and James MacMillan Studies, ed. with George Parsons (Cambridge 2021), Contemporary Music and Spirituality ed. with Sander van Maas (Routledge, 2017), and The Feldenkrais Method in Creative Practice (Bloomsbury, 2021), and on musical improvisation to film (in Perspectives of New Music). He recorded improvisations to film on the organ and piano including a disc of improvisations, Les ombres du Fantôme (Divine Art, 2024). Robert has given recitals at the St John’s Smith Square, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and twice at the Madeleine and at Notre-Dame de Paris. Personal note: I first met Père Kars at the 2002 Sheffield Messiaen conference where he gave a lecture-demonstration on the 'Première Communion de la Vierge'. However, my Uncle (Andrew Sholl) knew Père Kars (from the late 1980s) and translated his conversion testimony: https://www.hebrewcatholic.net/testimony-of-father-jean-rodolphe-kars/.
Born in Calcutta in 1948, Jean-Rodolphe Kars and his parents left for France in 1948. He began studying the piano at 7 and was at the Paris Conservatoire from 1958-64 and then studied with Jean Fassina. At 19, he was a finalist in the second Leeds piano competition (1966), which launched his career as a pianist, most notably making recordings for Decca and with the London Symphony orchestra. In 1968 he was awarded first prize in the “Concours de Piano Olivier Messiaen” at Royan. His upbringing was as a secular Jew, but in 1976 he converted to Catholicism and was baptized in 1977. In 1980 he joined the Emmanuel Community, and then ended his work as a pianist in 1981 to join the priesthood. He was ordained in 1986 and appointed chaplain of Paray-le-monial in Burgundy. As a pianist he specialised in Messiaen’s music, has written about it, and was a close friend of the composer. He credits Messiaen and this music as having an important role in his conversion, and considers him his “first spiritual Father.”
Sholl, Robert and Kars, Jean-Rodolphe
(2025)
"Olivier Messiaen’s "Première Communion de la Vierge" and the Translation of Religious Meaning,"
Yale Journal of Music & Religion:
Vol. 11:
No.
2, Article 1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1314
