About 40 years ago, Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement was premiered in Detroit (USA). It was the American Guild of Organists that commissioned the composition. I am very thankful that my detailed studies of the Livre du Saint Sacrement are now published in the language of the country that had so much to do with the genesis of the composition.
I owe the initiative for this translation project to David Vogels, who as an organist and auditor of the first performance of the Livre du Saint Sacrement has a personal history with Messiaen’s music. For more than two and a half years, he devoted himself to the translation with the greatest diligence, thoroughness, admirable perseverance, musical expertise, and linguistic sensitivity, thinking everything through and correcting it where necessary. Without his energy and enthusiasm, this book would not exist.
In addition, I would like to express my thanks to several people and institutions who have encouraged and supported this translation. I would like to thank the Görres-Gesellschaft and, in particular, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Konrad for the kind permission to publish the translation in the series “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kirchenmusik.” For fruitful and encouraging cooperation with the publishing house Brill | Schöningh, I thank Dr. Martina Kayser, Mrs. Sophia Zschache, and Mrs. Miriam Esau. I owe thanks to Dr. Richard Klee and Mr. Samuel Brandt for their extremely helpful corrections and comments of a theological and stylistic nature, as well as to the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Vienna for its kind financial support of the proofreading work. I would also like to thank the representatives of the publishing house Alphonse Leduc for granting me the reproduction rights.
My wish for all readers is that this book may help them gain deeper insights into the fascinating music of Olivier Messiaen, to perceive its profound spirituality, and to approach the mystery of the eucharistic presence of Christ through music.
Dorothee Bauer