Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was a French composer and organist who played a key role in the development of the European avant-garde. He started composing at a very early age and studied at the Paris Conservatoire from the age of 11. From 1931 until his death, he held the post of organist-titular of the Sainte-Trinité in Paris. In 1942, he was appointed professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire. There, he grew to become a much-loved and highly influential teacher whose students included Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Takemitsu and Ton de Leeuw. Through him, the at the time totally unknown Anton Webern came to the attention of the post-war generation of composers, and his extension of Schoenberg's twelve-tone principles to other musical parameters in the piano work Mode de valeurs et d'intensités was highly influential in the development of serialism.

As a devout Roman Catholic, Messiaen saw the beauty of God's creation as his main source of inspiration. He regularly went out to record birdsong, for which he developed an entirely unique method; this birdsong can be heard in many of his compositions. In Techniques de mon langage musical (1944), he wrote about his highly personal and eclectic musical system. He was also an ardent advocate of the Ondes-Martenot, a kind of precursor of the synthesiser for which he composed regularly. In 1971, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize.