Messiaen’s unusual instrumentation, inventive scoring and use of birdsong as a source of musical material in Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars) evoke the beauty of a magnificent landscape and celebrate the marvels of Creation itself. A commission by an American philanthropist in 1970 allowed Olivier Messiaen to explore one of North America’s wildest and most elemental landscapes: Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Looking beyond the depths of the canyons, Messiaen’s work reaches higher to ‘the beauties of the physical sky and the spiritual sky.’