Fête des belles eaux, or Festival of the beautiful waters in English, is a 1937 composition by French composer Olivier Messiaen.[1] The work is scored for six ondes Martenots and was commissioned for the 1937 Paris Exposition.[2] The work was written to accompany the movement[3] of the fountains at the Exhibition.
This composition is in eight movements and takes approximately 30 minutes to perform. The movement list is as follows:
The melodic theme used in the fourth movement was also used later in the fifth movement ("Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus") of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps.