Claire Delbos

[4] Messiaen wrote the Thème et variations for violin and piano as a wedding gift for his wife; they performed it together on 22 November 1932.

[5] During that summer, the Messiaens moved into an apartment at 77 rue des Plantes, on the Left Bank in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.

This was to be their home for the next six years, and was the venue of occasional musical gatherings of select friends; it was where they first met the Jolivets.

[6] Delbos also composed several organ works, including Paraphrase sur le jugement dernier and L'offrande à Marie, for Messiaen.

[11] In 1949, Delbos underwent a disastrous hysterectomy that resulted in a cerebral infection and, eventually, total amnesia.