MOG

Gigantic indeed. I love this piece. (You can hear some of Messiaen's influences in this Symphonia: Stravinsky and Mussorgsky come to mind, the former's sense of rhythm in particular).

I'm sure you're aware that Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen were among Messiaen's pupils when he taught at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Thanks for posting this video.

It's kind of strange that two musical enforcers and system maniacs like Boulez and Stockhausen ended up being the students of a composer who was seemingly open to anything that he heard and who would work to use it freely in his music (birdsong, Indian drum rhythms, twelve tone melodies).

I guess Messiaen had systems aplenty at play in his compositions and that was attractive and nourishing to those two.

You must be right about Messiaen's appeal to those people. I guess his systematic approach as opposed to a formalistic one was what appealed to both Boulez and Stockhausen. -- My recollection is that Messiaen's works were not so well received in France and that Boulez himself took his master's defence supporting among other things the Concours Olivier Messiaen of Contemporary Piano.

If you think those two should choose Messiaen's classes, what do you make of Iannis Xenakis sitting on the same school benches, as it were?

I guess it reflects well on a teacher when so many heavy hitters show up for his instruction, and seem to receive valuable ideas from the experience.

Messaien's students reported that he didn't try to force them into any particular mold, which meant they felt free to go where they wished artistically.