From Messiaen to Radiohead: How great music uses prime numbers

From Messiaen to Radiohead: How great music uses prime numbers

I fell in love with Messiaen’s music in my late teenage years, after my youth orchestra spent a weekend playing through his explosive Turangalîla-Symphony. I think that weekend was the peak of my trumpet playing. It had to be. The trumpet part was crazily difficult. The whole piece was fiendish. Strange time signatures defied the usual three or four beats we were used to. But I remember being just blown away by the sheer ecstasy that Messiaen ca…