Les Corps Glorieux is among Messiaen's most fully realized compositions for the organ, and is one of the crowning achievements of his early work. It is made up of seven disparate movements, each of which presents an independent musical/theological argument. The disparateness is an important sign of the music's mystical aspirations. In brief: if the scale of human time is narrative and self-referential, the scale of Divine time, as Messiaen wished to express it, is infinite and beyond narrative reference. He built his music therefore, not on continuity, but on chronic fragments that can better suggest, by implication, the scale of absolute time.

Messiaen turns to writing an unharmonized long-note melody for the first movement, "Les Corps," recalling the declamation of plainchant that preceded the movements of a polyphonic mass. In "La Subtilité," the sobering, austere moment of the opening chant is extended to almost six minutes, purifying the very air and mentally preparing us for what will follow; this is powerfully impersonal music.

For the next hour we move through many extraordinary soundscapes, so a quick review of some of the highlights will have to suffice. The second movement, like the first, uses a verse refrain pattern that echoes the dialectic of prayer and response. The "Waters of Grace," opens with a gently rocking phrase, subtly reminiscent of lullaby, set over rising pedal and chordal accompaniments.

The third movement introduces intoxicating, too-pungent chords and bubbling virtuosic passages. Its theme, "The Perfumed Angel," is splendidly expressed and we share in Messiaen's exhilaration. Contrast of textures, harmonies, and tempos here make up a richly varied tapestry.

The fourth movement is the longest, and contains in it some of Messiaen's most beautiful organ writing. After a tremendous opening, depicting "The Battle Between Life and Death" with gigantic dissonances across the entire range of the instrument, the movement settles into a tender, meditative section that lasts another 12 minutes. A single, high lament rises above shimmering chords like a call across a desolate battlefield.

In the penultimate seventh movement, after the loud and boisterous fifth and sixth, he returns to the slow meditative music that somehow still seems to be his most natural mode of expression. Three lines, in different registers, unfold a slow-moving, lucid polyphony, with a constant, breathy pedal underpinning. It ends as softly as it began, and the monumental oeuvre discreetly retreats into silence.

However great the sensual beauties of Messiaen's music are, pious sincerity and prayer are the conditions upon which he makes his musical offering. It is there, in the intimate colors, and subtle harmonic implications, that his music really resides.

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