1
Aspects and features of Western and Indian cultures in Olivier Messiaen’s conception of music. by Giusy Caruso
On request of: Codarts World Music Research Group Program, Rotterdam Conservatoire Teacher-coach: Prof. Willem Tanke Supervisor: Prof. Joep Bor Proof-reading: Prof. Caroline De Iacovo
Western twentieth century music is perhaps the most complex to define as to the variety of directions composers were bound to choose from. Together with the revival of interest in classical forms and techniques (from Bach backwards to the Renaissance and the Middle Ages), the development of music in Europe was also characterized by the discovery of new elements from native folk songs (especially when nationalist composers began to employ folk material in their symphonies and operas) and
from
the music of far-off lands (India, Africa, America). New techniques were being experimented by modern composers all over Europe, particularly in Paris, which was the world’s music capital after the first World War. A French composer who introduced new harmonic elements from the Oriental culture was Claude Debussy. His novelty stands in the use he made made of both the whole-tone scales and the pentatonic scales (easily played on the black keys of the piano) as well as his modal harmonic approach by which he combines tones in a chord to achieve “the colour” of a harmony - an impressionistic harmony, typical of the French twentieth century classical art. The melody, developing from the “colour” of the chords, takes priority over the counterpoint with the result being: a parallel movement of the chords which gives the idea of a sudden tonal change without modulation. It was in this revolutionary environment that Messiaen’s conception of music was forged, bringing out aspects and features marked by the influences he received from the Western music of the past (as the Gregorian Chant and the Greek modes, in particular) and by the “peculiarities” he discovered in Indian classical music. Messiaen may be seen as a link between the avant-garde concepts and modern music, because he is on the same line as the French twentieth century musical tradition like Debussy and Ravel, yet original in the musical novelties he expressed by his new system of modes and by introducing Indian rhythm and the ragas to the traditional European music. Thus, Messiaen’s typically original style lies in having successfully combined the traditional
2 Western idea of form, rhythm, melody and harmony with Indian musical elements he learned and cherished so much. Born at Avignon, into a learned French family (his mother was a poetess and his father a teacher of English and a Shakespearian scholar), Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) taught himself to play the piano at an early age. Only after the First World War, when his family moved to Nantes, did he receive his first formal tuition in piano and harmony. Later, at the Paris Conservatoire which he attended until 1930, being asked to analyze a score of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande on request of one of his teachers, Jehan de Gibon (1918), Messiaen described it as “a thunderbolt” and later declared it to be: “probably the most decisive influence on me”1. Messiaen, however, did not use Debussy’s style in his compositions because he thought that after Debussy and Dukas there was “nothing to add”2. Actually, after having studied at the conservatoire with Maurice Emmanuel (l928), his interest for ancient Greek rhythms and the exotic modes were strengthened even more by his coming in contact with the rhythms of the Indian provinces in Lavignac's Encyclopédie de la Musique in which he found a reproduction of the 120 Indian 'deçî-tâlas' taken from the Sharngadeva's treatise 3
Samgîta-ratnâkara . In 1931, he was appointed organist at La Sainte Trinité in Paris
and, there, he became involved with the Roman catholic liturgy from which he grasped its deep religious meaning. In 1936 he joined three other composers – Jolivet, DanielLésur and Baudrier – to form La Jeune France whose function was to restore to music a more human and spiritual quality together with a vent of seriousness which was sadly lacking in much of the French music of the time. During the Second World War, when he was taken prisoner at Gorlitz camp, in Silesia, he wrote and performed the Quatuor pur la Fin du Temps. After his repatriation, in 1942, he was appointed Professor of
Harmony at the Paris Conservatoire and, from then on, there ensued his most important formative years for composing. He met the pianist Yvonne Loriod, his student and second wife, who prompted him to write his major works for piano. In order to explain the essential features of his musical language, Messiaen published, in 1944, his first theoretical treatise, Technique de mon langage musical, where his musical conception of forms, melody and harmony is revealed. Messiaen was allured by “le charme de ______________________ 1
From the website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier Messiaen. Ibid . 3 Johnson Sherlaw R., Messiaen, 1975, J.M. DENT & SONS LTD, London, p. 10.
2
3 l’impossibilité”4 by which he meant hat musical impressions should sound each time differently in order to infuse delightful and refined sensations to the listener’s ear in an almost contemplative state. From this compositional concept too, it is evident how he comes close to that of Indian music with its predominant aim at capturing the listener’s attention. Messiaen’s interest in capturing the listener’s attention by using “variations” also stems from the relatively a-metrical sound when compared to most Western rhythms. The a-metric effects are an important part of Messiaen’s music, which often seems simply to exist as a single ecstatic moment associated with nature as he himself stated: «Most people believe that rhythm means the regular values of a military march. Whereas, in fact, rhythm is an unequal element, following fluctuations, like the waves of the sea, like the noise of the wind, like the shape of tree branches».5
The absence of metric definition is reflected in Messiaen’s use of highly structured rhythms that do not fall into periodic metres. Consequently, this conviction fostered his appeal for the Indian conception of irregularity in the rhythmical procedures. In India, the conception of rhythm (tāla) is not a succession of isochronous movements like in the Western conception. Tala is a rhythm cycle which consists of a fixed number of beats (matras) and each beat is defined by a combination of rhythmical sections growing into fixed patterns.6 The most unfamiliar aspect of tala to the Western ear is that the end of one cycle comes not on its last beat, but on the first beat of the following one, so as to have a continuous overlapping. Although Messiaen had never been to India, he assimilated the Indian musical conception at first when, as stated above, he was studying the reproduction in Lavignac's Encyclopédie de la Musique of the 120 Indian 'deçî-tâlas' written by the Indian thirteenth century theorist Cârngadeva , and later, when he could appreciate the rhythmic rules, the cosmic and religious symbols contained in each 'deçî-tâlas' from some Sanskrit translations made by a Hindu friend7.
_____________ _______________________ 4
Messiaen O., Technique de mon langage musical (1944), Italian translation by L. Ronchetti, 1999, Leduc, Paris. p.8. 5 Kelley R. T., Tradition, the Avant-Garde, and Individuality in the Music of Messiaen, from the website: http://www-student.furman.edu/users/r/rkelley/messiaen.htm. 6 The Raga Guide, ed. J. Bor, Rotterdam Conservatory of Music, p.7. 7 Samuel C., Olivier Messiaen : Musique et couleur , 1986, English translation by E. T. Glasow, 1994, Amadeus Press, Portland U.S.A, p. 77.
4
He explained openly in Chapter II of his Technique that the Indian rhythm “râgavardhana”, one of the 120 'deçî-tâlas', was greatly important for his composing 8:
This rhythm does no longer exist in modern Indian music but, theoretically, it is taken from the old Indian musical treatise Samgîta-ratnâkara. To the above Indian rhythmical pattern Messiaen applied the inversion form (a) and transformed it (b), as shown below9:
a
b
In order to enforce this conception of irregularity in rhythm, Messiaen based his theory of rhythm on valeur ajouté , “additive” rhythms. This involves lengthening individual notes slightly, or interpolating a short note into an otherwise regular rhythm which means that a short value, like a note (e), a dotted note/rest (f), a rest (g), could be added to a rhythm as shown below, while the traditional augmentation and diminution technique may also be applied onto them.10
____________________________________________ 8
Messiaen O., Technique de mon langage musical, 1944, Italian translation by L. Ronchetti, 1999, Leduc, Paris, p. 9. 9 Ibid . pp. 9 - 10. 10 Ibid . p.17.
5 e
f
g
Messiaen’s fondness for the “râgavardhana” rhythm led to his lifelong concern with the creation of palindrome-rhythms. He called these rhythmic mirror-structures “unretrograde” because when one is read backward (in retrograde) it is exactly the same as when read forward. According to Messiaen, these rhythms would embody the symbol of eternity in that they have no well-defined starting or ending point.11
«It’s extraordinary to think that the Hindus were the f irst to point out and use, rhythmically and musically, the principle of nonretrodradation…it’s a principle long applied to architecture; thus, in ancient art, Gothic and Romanesque cathedrals, and even modern art, the decorative figures are.. symmetrically inverse figures… Ancient magic spells contained words which seemed to have an occult power…reading words from left to right and right to left this time had (sic) the same sound and same order of letters…A final symbol – the moment which I live…this time which I beat, before and after lies eternity: it’s a 12 nonretrogradable rhythm »
____________________ 11
Ibid . p. 17. Samuel C., Olivier Messiaen: Musique et couleur , 1986, English translation by E. T. Glasow, 1994, Amadeus Press, Portland U.S.A, p. 77.
12
6 Messiaen elucidates that the non-retrograde principle has been for long recognized in architecture, especially in ancient art and in decorative arts, and that it was also used in magic formulas and codes to symbolize the symmetry found in nature, like the welldefined structure of the butterfly wings or the symmetrical parts of the human body. In his great last treatise Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d'Ornithologie (1949-1992), Messiaen gives more meticulous explanation on the non-retrograde rhythm in Tome II, after having displayed an accurate transcription of Indian talas and a painstaking comparison of these with Western musical signs in Tome I.13 Messiaen combined rhythms with harmonic sequences in such a way that if the process were allowed to proceed indefinitely, the music would eventually run through all the possible permutations and return to its starting point. He achieved this by using the technique known as the “continuous variation” (from the Classical and Romantic traditions, mainly Beethoven and Brahms) which he extended to all the melodic lines, as well as including the pedal in his organ compositions. For instance, in the second piece of one of his early organ work, L’Ascension (1933), he already used this principle of “continuous variation” with different textures in the accompaniment, occurring either on the left hand or the right hand and on the pedal. This process, called variableostinato, is a musical principle also found in Stravinsky’s La Sacre du Printemps, very much appreciated by Messiaen. The variable-ostinato implies “intrinsic oppositions” which means that the accompaniment (ostinato) is repeated each time with a different variation (variable). It is not surprising that Messiaen had a great admiration of Igor Stravinsky’s use of rhythm and of colour . Another aspect of Messiaen’s conception of music particularly related to the Indian culture regards the concept of melody. On discussing about melody and the choice of its shape in Chapter VIII of his Technique, Messiaen focussed his attention on some intervals he considered most important for a refined melodic quality. These are the augmented descending fourth, for its natural resolution to the tonic, and the major descending sixth. He makes examples of some “refined” melodies that are taken not only from the Western folk songs and the Gregorian chant but literally from the Indian 14
raga (melodic type).
___________________ 13
14
Messiaen O., Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d'Ornithologie (1949-1992), vol. 1, 2, Alphonse Leduc, Paris. Perinu R., La Musica Indiana, Zanibon, Milano, p. 48.
7 The raga is not actually a simple melodic outline but it contains a symbolic meaning too. Its essence is the expression of emotions, feelings, metaphysical ideas as well as the seasons, the weather or the time of day. In fact, the word raga comes from the Sanskrit base form ranj, meaning “colouring”; and the term “colour” in Hinduism stands for the reaction of the soul to emotions. This relationship between music (raga) and feelings, seasons, time etc. have social and religious implications. Every raga can evoke to the listener a particular aesthetic reaction or feeling called rasa.15 During an Indian performance musicians choose one raga at the beginning and they go on playing improvising around it. There are about 60 main ragas that the performer can choose from, according to the mood he wants to evoke. The performance lies on his capacity to improvise extensively without abandoning the chosen raga. There are some rules characterising the raga: it must have the tonic (sa), either the fourth (ma) or the fifth ( pa), at least.16 This link between raga and rasa is the most important principle by which Indian music aims at giving the listener a specific effect or “mood” wanted by the raga. Messiaen is, thus, in accord with this Indian aesthetic theory concerning the essence of melody (raga). Melody, for him too, can be the expression of nature (like the songs of birds he had been recording throughout France and all over the world to make use of them in his composition); it also can be the expression of colours (similar to the principle of synaesthesia by which his chords and his modes can be transcribed into colours).
Another aspect common to both Messiaen and Indian music, when talking about melody (or music in general), regards the transcendent symbolic meaning they confer to it: music is not a simple succession of notes (melody - raga) or chords (harmony) but rather it is a means that leads to an aesthetic rapture. While the Indian musician aims at choosing musical elements (raga - melody) to achieve the “transcendent” by conveying a mystical message to the listener, Messiaen finds an unshaken driving force for his musical creativeness in his Catholic faith. Drawing his inspiration from the Catholic doctrine, he uses the musical language to let the listeners meditate on the Mysteries of the divine truth.
_______________________ 15 16
Ibid. p. 75. Ibid. p. 37.
8 In Indian music the performer, who is at the same time the “composer”, improvises on a raga chosen from those he learned in infancy directly from his teacher (guru), as part of
their oral tradition. According to Perinu’s version, the Indian meaning of music is implied in the Yogic interpretation of the world in one of the branches of the Tantric philosophy. Music is considered the immediate and direct expression of the unspeakable primordial Sound -Verb (Logos) which is the creative energy (shabda, nâda) that vibrates in the universe from the very beginning of time in the mantra sound OM-AUM. This sound comprises all the harmonics and it is the first perceptible expression of the divine being ( Braham) whom all living beings are a part of. In music, as well as in poetry (chant), the very essence of the divine being (in a pure pantheistic sense) is revealed.17 The Indian ontological and aesthetic conceptions were absorbed in the Western philosophy by Schopenhauer and by the Romantic view of music. Earlier before that, this concept already belonged to the Pythagorean metaphysics which held a rational, mathematical interpretation of the Universe by comparing the intervals of the scales to the harmonic movement of the planets. Messiaen’s interpretation of the Universe comes close to that of the Pythagorean’s and to the Indian one as we can infer from his notes of Les visions de l’Amen (1943) for two pianos. For instance, in the second piece of this
work the contrary and parallel movements of the two pianos evoke the sound of “the dancing planets”.18 Messiaen undoubtedly grasped the symbolic meaning of music from both the Western and the Indian metaphysical interpretations but he actually stood fast to his unfaltering Catholic faith. In the Conversation with Claude Samuel (1986), Messiaen, declares that his being attracted by the mystery and the magic of Hindu music ought not be considered an offence towards his Catholic religion. He never converted to Buddhism, Hinduism or Shivaism, he was only interested in the symbolic, philosophical meaning of the Hindu rhythms and melody.19 From a philosophic point of view, his music was to derive from his deeply rooted personal convictions, over which the Catholic doctrine predominates in his linking the Western and non-Western musical traditions. Messiaen, in fact, wanted to give no other but his Catholic interpretation to his composition and ____________________________________________ 17
Ibid . p. 181 - p. 190. See his notes in Les visions de l’Amen (1943). 19 Samuel C., Olivier Messiaen: Musique et couleur , 1986, English translation by E. T. Glasow, 1994, Amadeus Press, Portland U. S. A, p. 78. 18
9 made, for this reason, specific notes on his work-sheets like, for instance, in Les visions de l’Amen. In this work he aims at giving a complete interpretation of “Amen” as the
total submission of all the living creatures to God (the Verb / the Almighty Father).20 Messiaen uses long and solemn chords in the first piece of Les visions de l’Amen, where the second piano presents the theme of Creation (Genesis) with long vibrating chords in order to put the listener in a meditative and religious mood. These expedients are also found in his early organ production, in particular in the last piece of L’Ascension (1933) where the tempo is very slow and the harmony is static - it starts and finishes in the dominant of G. The continuation of a tone centre without modulation is another feature in Messiaen’s composition which can be traced back to the Indian musical technique. Messiaen uses mostly a parallel movement of the melody and of the chords with sudden tonal changes, without modulation, creating a static harmonic process. At the same time Indian improvisations are conceived in a horizontal way. They are based on one line (melody /raga) held by a continuous accompaniment of the tonic in which some specific tones come back (like the fifth) but without modulation between modes. The sound impression is a melody, on long chords, without modulation which makes the harmonic speed seem “static”. The structure of Indian music, based mostly on one fundamental note (the tonic), is linked to its aesthetic conception of “transcendent”. Since the corrupted human senses perceive the phenomena as multiple varieties (“the tangible particulars”), the truth lies, instead, in only one element (“the whole” - the divine being), which comprises all the multiple varieties (pantheism). Such idea is reflected in the Indian conception of music, by which a melody can be traced back and held by one note only - “the transcendent” (the tonic or the dominant), to which the other notes of the scale - “the particulars”- can be referred to. 21 For the Indian people the essence of Art is to feel, through the tangible world, the divine truth behind, like an “éblouissement” which, for Messiaen, is the mystical message he wanted to confer to his composition.
________________________ 20 21
See his notes in Les visions de l’Amen (1943). Perinu R., La Musica Indiana, Zanibon, Milano, p. 178.
10 Upon analysing some other of Messiaen’s organ works, we can find a strong use of the static harmonic process probably associated to a mystical message: all the notes are related to the fundamental (tonic) like all living creatures to God. Le banquet céleste (published in 1928), for example, is based on C sharp major or F sharp major, without a real modulation occurring from the beginning to the end of the piece, where the tonic chord plus the seventh create a dominant sensation imbued with expectations causing a feeling of endlessness. In Dyptique (1930), the same harmonic processes are observed in both his organ and his Quartet version. In the first part Messiaen represents human troubles through a fast succession of chords where each chord is changed in some details, under the principle of continuous variation, but the same tonality (C minor) is kept with short fragments in F minor or in G minor. In the second part, Messiaen wants to represent Heaven by using C major in a really slow movement, and here again without modulation. Although Messiaen uses mostly the static harmonic processes there are some exceptions where he integrates complex modulation like he does in the last part of Le Verbe and in the central part of Dieu parmi nous, ( the second and the fourth book of La Nativité du Seigneur -1945). It is interesting to see how Messiaen combines the classical forms with the use of the static harmonic processes, as he did in L’Ascension. This work has two versions, one for organ and one for orchestra, and it is divided into 4 pieces in the following tonalities: E major, F major, F sharp major and the dominant of G major (D major). Messiaen makes these tonalities follow one another as they actually run from E to G in an ascending way. The symbolic meaning of Christ ascending to Heaven can be found both in the title L’Ascension and in the choice of these tonalities. The four pieces of L’Ascension are written in respect of the classical forms in that the first and the fourth are in an ABA, the second and the third are in rondo form, whereas the static harmonic process is used in contrast to the classical dynamic harmonic one. The classical sonata of the eighteenth century is based on a dynamic harmonic process, since two opposite themes, like two contrasting forces, are combined with modulations from a tonic to a dominant, or to the relative minor tonality, into frameworks. These modulations help to create a harmonic process which is essentially dynamic. Such a dynamic process continues to be accepted throughout the Romantic period when music was given an “infinite” connotation from its becoming the expression and the language of feelings. In fact, Wagner spoke about an “infinite melody” in his works, Liszt used the “cyclic form” and Brahms the continuous variation technique. This dynamic
11 Romantic view is linked to Hegel’s philosophy and his Dialectics which is based on the forward movement from Thesis to Antithesis to Synthesis. Something changes in the twentieth century music with, at first Debussy, and then Ravel, in the way they begin to use a modal approach in combining tones in a chord. From a parallel movement of the chords the melody develops, taking priority over the counterpoint, with a sudden tonal change without modulation. It is from these principles that Messiaen shows his classical background renewed by the twentieth century French novelties on one side and by Indian music on the other, creating a personal, well-balanced and original mélange in his compositional technique. His studies concerning the classical forms (in particular the fugue and the sonata) are concentrated in chapter XII of his Technique .22 Messiaen focuses on the essential parts of these forms which are “divertissement” and “stretto” in the fugue, and “development” and variation on the themes in the Sonata. While “the variation technique” remains the most important element in Messiaen’s compositional structures, his static harmonic approach reveals to be completely opposite to the dynamic classical one. There is also a casual closeness between Messiaen’s respect of the classical form and the Indian musicians’ observance of the structural sections during their performance. Although Indian music seems mostly free from compositional rules on account of its improvising characteristic, performance is based on formal structural sections similar to the Western classical forms. The first part of an Indian performance is called alap which is a slow, meditative “mood-setter” in free rhythm, like a long introduction, where the musician presents and unfolds the raga. Then, there is the jor in which the performer still plays without a very rhythmical pattern (tala); only later a rhythmical pulse is introduced in the jod in a medium tempo and then in the jhala in a fast tempo, by some virtuoso passages. After these three sections of alap the soloist starts the composition and is accompanied by another musician (percussionist) improvising together, while each one pursues his own individual variations on the raga and the tala chosen at the beginning, creating in this way a double counterpoint
______________________ 22
Messiaen O., Technique de mon langage musical (1944), Italian translation by L. Ronchetti, 1999, Leduc, Paris, p. 51.
12 The Indian composition form is not completely fixed but consists of free elements. Originally the composition form was called dhrupad which later became known as gat (an instrumental composition form) and bandish (a song).23 Printed scores or written scores do not exist in Indian music, patterns are handed down orally and are varied during the performance that are mostly based on improvisations. Even if Messiaen is open-minded towards Indian musical concepts, as seen so far, he clearly states in chapter XVI of his Technique that there is one particular element, which is not to be confused with the Indian one, and that is his own scale system based on seven “modes of limited transposition”.24 Messiaen emphasises the originality of such expedient in that his seven modes are not transposable 12 times, like normal scales, but only a fixed number of times: the first mode is transposable only 2 times; the second, (called the octatonic scale or diminished scale) 3 times; the third, 4 times; and the fifth, the sixth and the seventh modes, 6 times. Messiaen clearly states that his research regarding the modes must not lead astray from natural harmony:
<<… true harmony, the unique one, joyful in its essence, implied in melody, pre-existing within melody 25 and drawn from melody where it laid hidden until its outbreak. >>
Messiaen declares that, under the principle of synaesthesia he perceived the soundcolour relationship
physiologically.26 He set the conception of tone-colour to the
harmonic “modes of limited transposition” giving rise the idea of individual coloration. In Tome VII of Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d'Ornithologie (1949-1992) Messiaen made the exact correspondance between his modes of limited transposition and the limited numbers of colours they should evoke: three possible colours for mode two, four possible colours for mode three, six possible colours for mode four and mode six27.
___________________ 23
The Raga Guide, ed. J. Bor, Rotterdam Conservatory of Music, p. 5-6-7. Messiaen O., Technique de mon langage musical (1944), Italian translation by L. Ronchetti, 1999, Leduc, Paris, p. 87 – 94. 25 Ibid . p. 75. 26 Samuel C., Olivier Messiaen : Musique et couleur , 1986, English translation by E. T. Glasow, 1994, Amadeus Press, Portland U. S. A., p. 40. 27 Messiaen O., Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d'Ornithologie (1949-1992), vol. 7, Alphonse Leduc, Paris.
24
13 Then he combines the 15 natural harmonics into one chord, “the resonance chord”, which he describes through a variety of colours as “yellow, violet, mauve, leaden grey” etc…28
There is another particular chord in Messiaen’s harmonic system, which comprises all the notes of the major scales, called “Chord on the dominant”: 29
These chords can be transposed in their inversion on the same bass note giving, as he said, a “rainbow effect” which recalls the effect of refracting light through a window glass in a Cathedral.30
_______________________________________________________
28
Messiaen O., Technique de mon langage musical (1944), Italian translation by L. Ronchetti, 1999, Leduc, Paris, p. 70. 29 Ibid . p. 69. 30 Ibid . p. 69.
14 Messiaen also wants to reproduce the natural sound effect using a succession of chords, like a “waterfall of chords”, which he calls “resonance effect”.31
This bar is taken from the beginning of the sixth Prelude (1930), Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu, where Messiaen uses the resonance homophony in the sixth mode
above the principal homophony in the second mode to reproduce the resonance of tolling bells through a “a waterfall of chords” in the lower and middle register of the piano. All the musical elements (rhythm, melody, harmony) used by Messiaen have this symbolic connection with nature (like in the above examples: “rainbow”, “waterfall”, shades of colours) because nature clearly had a great impact on him as it is part of his belief in the Almighty God: in it he sees the reflection of all His goodness, beauty and might. Messiaen, thus, gives a symbolic meaning to his music by transcending towards the divine truth, almost as revealing a juxtaposition of the Indian metaphysical conception of music to his own background. As an end analysis, it is worth saying that Messiaen can be considered an eclectic musician of European twentieth century music because his personal style stands in the originality and the ease by which he ranges from the Western classical tradition to the Indian one, yet placing his unfaltering Catholic faith as the fundamental leitmotive throughout his works.
_______________________ 31
Ibid . p. 71.
15 Bibliography
Works by Olivier Messiaen:
1943. notes on Les visions de l’Amen. 1944. Technique de mon langage musical, Italian translation by L. Ronchetti, 1999, Alphonse Leduc, Paris. 1949-1992. Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d'Ornithologie vol. 1, 2, 7, Alphonse Leduc, Paris.
Books on Olivier Messiaen:
Samuel C., Olivier Messiaen: Musique et couleur , 1986, English translation by E. T. Glasow, 1994, Amadeus Press, Portland U.S.A. Johnson Sherlaw R., Messiaen, 1975, J.M. DENT & SONS LTD, London.
Articles on Olivier Messiaen:
Troncon P., Ricordo di O. Messiaen, Diastemia, Semestral issue on Musical Researches and Musicology, July 1992.
Simundza M., Messiaen's Rhythmical Organisation and Classical Indian Theory of Rhythm (I-II). International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 18 (1987). Kelley R. T., Tradition, the Avant-Garde, and Individuality in the Music of Messiaen , From the website: http://www-student.furman.edu/users/r/rkelley/messiaen.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Messiaen.
General research on early twentieth century music:
Salvetti G., La nascita del Novecento, 1991, E.D.T., Torino.
Books on Indian music: The Raga Guide, ed. J. Bor, Rotterdam Conservatory of Music.
Perinu R., La Musica Indiana, Zanibon, Milano.
16
APPENDIX
An analysis of Messiaen’s Huit Préludes by Giusy Caruso
The Huit Préludes are among Messiaen’s early works. He was only twenty years old, at the time, when he had not yet undertaken to experiment with rhythm nor was he completely involved with bird singing yet. He was, however, familiar with the conception of tone-colour and he had already set up the harmonic “modes of limited transposition”
which gave rise to his idea of individual coloration. Messiaen
underlined that, contrary to normal scales, his seven modes are not transposable 12 times but only a fixed number of times: the first mode is transposable only twice; the second, (called the octatonic scale or diminished scale) three times; the third, four times; and the fifth, the sixth and the seventh modes, six times. Under the principle of synaesthesia, Messiaen associates colours to his modes and combines the fifteen natural
harmonics into one chord, “the resonance chord”, which he describes through a variety of colours. These chords, played in turned over manner, recall the effect of refracting light through a window glass in a cathedral, a phenomenon which Messiaen calls “rainbow effect”. Yvonne Loriod, a great pianist, pupil of Messiaen and then his second wife, made an historical recording of the Prélude. In the booklet included, Messiaen himself defined his Préludes “studies in colour”. This explains how early Messiaen had in mind the relation between colours and tones. Each Prelude is based on one mode creating a particular atmosphere with a specific colour. At the end, Messiaen annotates that the colours in his work as a whole are basically violet, orange and purple.
1. La Colombe – “The Dove” is a binary sentence based on the second mode of limited transposition which evokes bright colours like orange veined with violet. This Prelude starts with a simple melody - on an obstinate accompaniment in E major - which moves through the augmented fourth melodic interval (the tritone). Messiaen appreciated this interval, which was not used in the past on account of its dissonant character and its complex intonation. He used this interval in all the Préludes and, generally, in all his works because he considered the augmented fourth the most important interval in the harmonics produced by the natural resonance of the sound. The parallel movements of the chords (at the beginning only on the right hand and at times on both hands) recall
17 much of Debussy and Ravel’s harmonic technique, renewed, however, by Messiaen’s system of modes which he developed into a typical feature of his musical language.
2. Chant d’extase dans un paysage triste – “Song of ecstasy in a sad Landscape” is a symmetrical rondo form based on the second mode of limited transposition (used in the first Prelude) which here, in its second transposition, evokes not an orange bright colour, but a dark grey, mauve, Prussian blue like the mysterious mood of a “sad landscape” should be. At the beginning and at the end of the piece, a simple melody on a melancholy obstinate introduces the static atmosphere. The middle part, instead, is a faster, brilliant section whose colour is again bright: diamond-like, silvery.
3. Le nombre léger – “The light number” is a short moto perpetuo in a binary form, with the second appearance of the theme presented in the dominant and treated as a canon in the coda. The static canons are colouristic rather than structural anticipating the important use of mensural canons found in Messiaen’s later music. This Prelude is based again on the second mode of limited transposition, like the first Prelude, with the same colour: orange veined with violet.
4. Instants défunts – “Defunct Instants” has a fragmentary structure expressed by two distinct musical idea in alternation. Each “instant” is a musical period with a different rhythm so that the piece has a polirhythmic structure. This Prelude is based on the seventh mode of limited transposition which expresses a dark mood in the following colours: velvet grey with reflections of mauve and green.
5. Les sons impalpables du Rêve – “The impalpable sounds of dreams” is again a symmetrical rondo form plus a coda where the asymmetry introduced by the expansion and contraction capture the listener’s interest. This Prelude illustrates how modes can be used variedly. It opens with a polymodal passage consisting of a pedal-group of chords on the right hand in the third mode, and the main homophonic theme on the left hand in the second mode. The next section is based partly in the second mode and partly in a different mode, not of limited transposition. The part, which introduces again the polymodal section, is based on contrary movements of chords in the sixth mode. The middle section is in the seventh mode and, here, the harmonic intervals come closer and create a dissonant sound. The colours of the Prelude are basically orange blue in the
18 obstinate on the left hand and a violet purple in chordal cascades on the right hand, treated in brass timbre.
6. Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu – “Bells of anguish and tears of farewell”, as the previous Prelude, anticipates future developments. It is an example of Messiaen’s “development-exposition” form. A sense of intensification, which is typical of classical development sections, is achieved in the first section by simple contracted repetitions of the same material in successively higher keys. The piece begins with an “additive” rhythm (unusual for this period) on repeated G, suggesting the tolling of a bell. The beginning of this Prelude involves the use of resonance homophony in the sixth mode above the principal homophony in the second mode, the whole of which in turn adds resonance to the chords in the lower and middle register of the piano. Unlike Ravel’s La Vallée des cloches (the last piece of Miroirs, 1905)
where the sound of the bells is
rendered by a simple succession of fourth and fifth descending harmonic intervals, Messiaen uses a succession of full chords, a “waterfall of chords” played in the upper register of the piano, which he calls “resonance effect”. All the high harmonics of the bells resolve into luminous vibrations. Messiaen in particular, describes the colour of the last three notes, the adieu, as purple, orange and violet.
7. Plainte calme – “Calm lamentation” is in a simple ternary form and its first section is repeated with “open” and “closed” cadences. Messiaen uses the second mode in its third transposition evoking dark colours of velvet grey with reflections of mauve and green.
8. Un reflet dans le vent – “A reflection in the wind” is a clear reminiscence of Debussy with its occasional touch of surrealism, but Messiaen, differently from the Impressionists, uses a definite formal structure: A - B(development) - A’ + coda. The light storm that opens and closes the piece, based on the third mode in its fourth transposition, evokes orange veined with green colours, dappled with a few black spots. The central development is more luminous. The second theme, instead, is very melodic and coated in sinuous arpeggios with an orange blue colour in the first exposition and orange green in the recapitulation.
