Just ignore me, Bryn, I can't even close my quotes properly.

t-p (lovely to see you by the way!), the violin and piano pieces by Messiaen are very early. They're not entirely uncharacteristic, but I don't find them terribly interesting. The thing with Messiaen is, his most interesting music tends to be written for unusual combinations of instruments - although as Turfan Fragment has mentioned, there are some wonderful mature works for solo piano (and also for organ).

Even when Messiaen writes for orchestra, he never falls back on an entirely conventional idea of how an orchestra is made up. This is most obviously so in the late 1950s and through the 60s and 70s, when he favoured instrumental ensembles including piano and keyed percussion (xylophones, metal instruments, etc.) and wind and brass. But even in his earlier pieces for orchestra, he never once used the timpani; and he must be the only significant French composer in modern times whose entire published output contains not a single note for the harp.

No, you are hideous orang-utang. 

(sorry, couldn't resist it)

Thanks Ian. Thank you t-i-n. I value so much that I can talk with people like you here. It can put my views in perspective.
I am frustrated at how little I know. Most of my information comes by chance.

I can see that Messiaen early pieces are not entirely charachteristic. I just get excited that there are small pieces and I can try my hands at playing them. I can see that Turangalila-Symphonie is for piano solo, onde Martenot solo et grand orchestre (unusual combination).
I am delighted that I can hold Messiaen music in my hands (no library here). 
 
Perhaps it is better to play the best pieces of any composer. It takes so much time to learn that it is almost an investment.

Thank you again, t-i-n and IP. I think may be I will wait with Theme and variation and invest my money in something else.

Somehow I had failed to notice either of those things, very interesting indeed. I can see how it could be quite difficult for him to assimilate the harp into his harmonic thinking, given that his modes usually have eight or more pitches to the octave which a pedal harp of course can't do. Indeed, he never used any plucked string instruments at all, did he?

I don't think I know the Theme and Variations, though I'm fond of the Preludes. What do people think of Eclairs sur l'au-delà? I think I've decided I don't like it much, apart from the one movement (the sixth) which doesn't feel like a pale imitation of something he wrote previously. Or am I being unfair?

Maybe, but for me the starkness of it is even greater (especially the rhythmic cycles, which there's nothing quite like in earlier Messiaen or anyone else). I really can't see it as on the same level as those two other pieces: I don't find its materials as memorable, its structures as interesting, its colours as varied and individual, its vision as intense. I'm a great admirer of Messiaen's music, I would have loved it to have lived up to its title, but (as yet?) I haven't seen my way to it.

T-P - the last movement of Quatuor pour la fin du temps is for violin + piano: - no other instruments in that movement.

Thanks autoharp, thanks t-i-n. Such a good idea to try to look at Quatuor pour la fin du temps.
Can anybody translate the name for me? I feel like such an uneducated fool.
I loved cello movement from that Quartet, but did not listen to violin movement as much. I checked the price and the whole quartet is $45. It is going to be less in euro.

 

Thanks Richard. I knew the name in English and did not realize it.
 
Such a fool I am.