Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11 and numbered Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré among his teachers. He was appointed organist at the church of La Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post he held until his death. On the fall of France in 1940 Messiaen was made a prisoner of war, and while incarcerated he composed his Quatuor pour la fin du temps ("Quartet for the end of time") for the four available instruments, piano, violin, cello, and clarinet. The piece was first performed by Messiaen and fellow prisoners to an audience of inmates and prison guards. Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony soon after his release in 1941, and professor of composition in 1966 at the Paris Conservatoire, positions he held until his retirement in 1978. Messiaen's music is rhythmically complex (he was interested in rhythms from ancient Greek and from Hindu sources), and is harmonically and melodically based on modes of limited transposition, which were Messiaen's own innovation. Many of his compositions depict what he termed "the marvellous aspects of the faith", drawing on his unshakeable Roman Catholicism. Messiaen found birdsong fascinating; he believed birds to be the greatest musicians and considered himself as much an ornithologist as a composer. He notated birdsongs worldwide, and he incorporated birdsong transcriptions into a majority of his music.

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_________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1508:

The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of Venice. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_League_of_Cambrai)

1868:

The first traffic lights were installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London, resembling railway signals with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for night use. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_light)

1901:

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded, on the anniversary of the 1896 death of their founder, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize)

1936:

Edward VIII signed his instrument of abdication, becoming the only British monarch to voluntarily relinquish the throne. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII_abdication_crisis)

1948:

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights)

_______________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

froward (adj) Disobedient, unmanageable, with an evil disposition. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/froward)

______________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. --Desmond Tutu (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu)