Olivier Messiaen
(1908-1992)
Piano Music Volume 3
Olivier Messiaen is among the most influential figures in the music of
the twentieth century. At first alarming and shocking audiences, he later won
an unassailable position, respected at home in France and abroad for his
achievement through a musical language that is intensely personal, emotional
and informed by a deep Catholic piety. Born in Avignon in 1908, he started
piano lessons in 1917 and two years later entered the Paris Conservatoire,
where his teachers included Marcel Dupré, Maurice Emmanuel and Paul Dukas. In
1931 he was appointed organist at La Trinité and held this position until his
death, writing, particularly in the 1930s, a number of important compositions
for the organ. In 1940, as a prisoner-of-war in Silesia, he wrote his Quatuor
pour la fin du temps (‘Quartet for the End of Time’), returning, on his
release in 1942, to the Conservatoire. There he taught harmony but exercised
even stronger influence in the following years through his teaching of analysis
and his work at various centres abroad. As a composer his attention was now
turned also to composition for the piano, inspired by his pupil Yvonne Loriod,
who became Messiaen's second wife in 1962, three years after the death of his
first wife, the violinist Clajre Delbos. Yvonne Loriod continued as a leading
exponent of his music. In 1966 Messiaen became professor of composition at the
Conservatoire and the following year was appointed a member of the Institut de
France. In 1971 he received the Erasmus Prize and in 1978 retired from the
Conservatoire, although his influence continued unabated. He died in Paris in
1992.
Messiaen's very personal musical language was derived from a number of
sources. His interest in bird-song is directly evident in his Oiseaux
exotiques (‘Exotic Birds’) and Catalogue d'oiseaux (‘Catalogue of
Birds’, Naxos
8.553532-34) and indirectly elsewhere in his music. Describing himself as a rythmicien,
he had a profound interest in Greek verse rhythms, Hindu rhythms and the
rhythms of major Western composers, from Claude Le Jeune to Debussy and
Stravinsky. His harmony draws on a combination of sources, from serialism and
atonality to tonal and modal writing, with an idiosyncratic use of organ
registration and orchestral colour.
The eight Prélude, were published in 1929, while Messiaen was
still a student, at the instance of Paul Dukas. While the titles sometimes
suggest Debussy, the music itself shows considerable originality. The first of
the set, La colombe (‘The Dove’), is evocative in its binary form, the
second half repeating the first until the final gentle ascent, a
characteristically symmetrical piece Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste (‘Song
of Ecstasy in a Sad Landscape’) is similarly clear in structure. The opening
section, presented simply at first, frames a chordal section before returning
in fuller form. At the heart of the piece is new material, ecstatic in mood,
framing in turn a central section that presents its melodic material in
imitative canon. The opening material returns, again framing the material of
the second section, each offered in a varied form. There is use of canon in the
final section of Le nombre léger (‘The Light Number’), after the opening
section has returned in a higher, related key. Instants défunts (‘Dead
Instants’) has a similar regularity of structure, with its opening material
framing secondary material, the latter elaborated, while the former is
shortened at each reappearance. The piece ends with a coda. Les sons
impalpable, du rêve (‘The Impalpable Sounds of the Dream’) has the symmetry
of a rondo, its opening section returning to frame two intervening
episodes. It is followed by Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu (‘Bells
of Anguish and Tears of Farewell’). Here a repeated note suggests the sound of
a bell, with its overtones above. After an intervening section the bell tolls
again, in a higher tonality, rising still further at the next repetition. The
material develops to a dynamic climax, followed by a tenderly evocative passage,
dominated by a recurrent motif, before the return of the bell, heard
intermittently as the piece comes to an end. The seventh piece, Plainte
calme (‘Calm Plaint’) is ternary in form. It is followed by Un reflet
dans le vent (‘A Reflection in the Wind’), a piece with an equally clear
structure, perhaps obscured by the illustrative element that is present.
The two Îles de feu (‘Isles of Fire’), dedicated to Papua
and written in 1950, were grouped together with Mode de valeurs et
d'intensités (‘Mode of Durations and Intensities’) and Neumes rythmiques
(‘Rhythmic Neums’) of 1949 as part of Quatre études rythmiques (Four
Rhythmic Studies). Mode de valeurs et d'intensités initiates the use of
total serialism. While Schoenberg had applied serialism to a series of the
twelve different notes of the octave in a determined order, then to be used
also inverted, in retrograde form, or in retrograde inversion, Messiaen now
extended this from notes to durations, attack and intensity, specifying twelve
kinds of attack, seven dynamic intensities, three series of twelve notes and 24
durations. Written at Darmstadt, the piece had a strong influence on the young
composers present there, although aurally not at first easy to grasp. In
particular its three sets of pitches are not treated as in a predetermined
order, but differentiated by the other determined elements specified. The work
had a direct influence on the total serialism employed subsequently by Pierre
Boulez.
Neumes rythmiques takes its title from the note-groupings of
plainchant, the rhythmic neums, that are framed here by recurrent refrains. In
the first group of refrains the rhythm is gradually expanded while in the
second Messiaen makes use of durations in a series of prime numbers, offering
what he refers to as 'non-retrogradable rhythms', rhythmic patterns that, if
reversed, form the same pattern. The intervening episodes of rhythmic neums
have determined resonances and intensities, to be augmented by additive
rhythms.
Île de feu I is based on a theme which is repeated in different registers. The theme
of Île de leu II is derived from this, but here there are intervening
episodes based on a mode of twelve durations, twelve pitches, four attacks and
five intensities, in a series of what Messiaen calls 'interversions', ten in
number. These are derived from an original series of twelve durations that is
opened out like a fan, each succeeding 'interversion' derived from the
preceding one. In this way the series 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 can be opened
out from the centre, offering the permutation.
Interversion I: 6 7 5 8 4 9 3 10 2 11 1 12
and this can be treated in the same way to form
Interversion II: 3 9 10 4 2 8 11 5 1 7 12 6
Successive 'interversions' are played simultaneously, each pair forming
an episode. The mathematically inclined will see that the tenth permutation
restores the original order. The piece ends in a rapid and energetic coda.
Cantéodjayâ was written in 1948. Messiaen had long been interested in Hindu rhythms,
relying on the listing of 120 such rhythms in the thirteenth-century Sangitaratnākara
of Sarngadeva. The score includes names drawn from this work and from
Karnatic musical theory, the latter including the title of the work, indicating
the element with which the piece opens, interspersed with intervening material.
The sixth appearance of this characteristic rhythm and figuration is followed
by three brief refrains, a first couplet, a return of the first refrain and a
second couplet. There follows the second refrain and third couplet, including a
six voice canon. The first and third refrains are heard before the final return
of the original cantéyndjayâ. The work contains elements further
explored in the Mode de valeurs et d'intensités. At a first hearing a
listener unfamiliar with the style of writing might do worse than keep in mind
the opening phrases, although the general form is one rather of superimposition
than extensive repetition and development.
Keith Anderson