April, la saison des amours for wild life in France, inevitably brings out the bird watchers. Last week one of the oddest sights in the fields and forests was a stocky, monkish fellow in a Basque beret and rimless glasses, cocking an ear to all the amorous twittering, and furiously scribbling music on manuscript paper clipped to a board. It was French Composer Olivier Messiaen, 58, elder statesman of the far-out realm of 20th century music, gathering new themes for his compositions. "Birds are the greatest musicians," he insists. "You will never...
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