Work of scandal and success, for the church or for concert halls, Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine (Three Small Liturgies of the Divine Presence) are among Messiaen's most popular works. While the piece captured the audience of La Pléiade concerts at its premiere in 1945 with its shimmering music and melodic themes, some critics protested against this music, considering it too flashy and too easy.

Bringing together a unique ensemble - women's choir, piano and Ondes Martenot, percussion, and string orchestra - the Trois Petites Liturgies are for its composer a "religious concert work," but above all a true act of faith and a liturgical act transposing "a kind of office, a kind of organized praise in the concert hall." The text, written by the composer himself, is sprinkled with Bible quotations; the luminous music, as always with Messiaen, summons a myriad of colors: "blues, reds, blues striped with red, purples and grays splashed with orange" or even "blues studded with green and encircled with gold" - a dazzling array of colors intended by Messiaen to express the ineffable presence of the divine.

L’Itinéraire
Spirito, choir
Students of Institut d’Enseignement Supérieur de la Musique d’Aix-en-Provence and of Pôle Supérieur Paris Boulogne-Billancourt
David Chevalier, piano
Nathalie Forget, ondes Martenot
Mathieu Romano, conductor

Gérard Grisey, Stèle
Philippe Leroux, Un Lieu verdoyant – tribute to Gérard Grisey
Michaël Levinas, Froissement d’ailes
Claude Debussy, Mélodies (voice and piano)
Olivier Messiaen, Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine