The word „Harawi” originates from the Quechua language of the Andes region and refers to a genre of love songs that culminate with the lovers’ deaths. The greatest fulfilment is in dying for love. French avant-gardist Olivier Messiaen uses this transcendent idea and explores it in his Tristan Trilogy from different perspectives – for the first time in 1945 in his song cycle „Harawi,” subtitled „Chant d’amour et de mort – Song of Love and Death”. He wrote the lyrics. They are surreal, sometimes onomatopoetic poems that are heavy on sensuality and symbolic power, primarily in French. In key moments, Olivier Messiaen deploys Quechua words, less because of their meaning and much more because of the strong associating sound of their syllables. Here, Olivier Messiaen enters an originally direct level of expression, some kind of metaphysical music that conjures up all of the craziness, desperation, power and ecstasy of an all-consuming love, interpreted by soprano Rachael Wilson and pianist Virginie Déjos.