Le banquet céleste, for organ, I/1

Le banquet céleste is an excellent example of Messiaen's musical aesthetic as it applies to the organ: it features thick, warm texture, and long, relaxed phrases. The work is largely atmospheric in its musical intent; the strongest emphasis is placed on harmony. Messiaen's vertical sonorities are modally organized, though they also includes conventional tonal triads. The piece unfolds so slowly -- though only 25 measures long, it lasts about six minutes at the tempo prescribed by the composer -- that there is no strong sense of beat. As musicologist Roger Nichols notes, Messiaen "forces us to rethink our notion of time, so that we hear the logic of harmony and melody but without feeling ourselves tied to a mundane beat."

With Le banquet céleste, the young Messiaen (the composer was 20 when he wrote this work) creates a kind of Impressionistic soundscape, paying homage to Debussy but at the same time forging the foundations of his own musical language. The composer's style evolved to include on a regular basis the static modal harmonies that give Le banquet céleste its sense of suspended time. ~ Alexander Carpenter, All Music Guide