This first book in English on the French composer Andre Jolivet (1905-1974) investigates his music, influences and activities against a background of the main trends in twentieth-century French music. A pupil of Varese and colleague of Messiaen in La Jeune France, Jolivet is recognised as a major figure in French music of the last century. His music is characterised by its innovative language and deep spirituality, summarised in his self-declared axiom to 'restore music's ancient original meaning when it was the magic and incantatory expression of the sacred in human communities'. Following a...