Messiaen and the Notion of Influence (1)

7/29/2019 Messiaen and the Notion of Influence (1)

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2 Tempo 63 (247) 218 2009 Cambridge University Pressdoi:10.1017/S0040298209000011 Printed in the United Kingdom

Julian Anderson

In 1989, I bought a CD in Paris of the early piano music of AndrJolivet.1 Like many non-French musicians, I had read the name ofJolivet but heard little of his music. Jolivets reputation as Varses lead-ing pupil and the extreme avant-gardist of the pre-World War II groupLaJeune France seemed completely at odds with his conventional post-War music occasionally broadcast on Radio 3, such as the Concertos for

Trumpet, Piano or Ondes Martenot music which suggested not fullyassimilated influences of Honegger or Hindemith, with little obvious-ly adventurous about it in its rhythmically conservative phrasing andstandard formal shapes.

The CD came as a shock. Stylistically the extraordinary1935 pianosuiteMana had clearly had a strong impact on the young Boulez, whowould have surely known this music from Messiaens private analysesclasses, which he is known to have attended in 19445. Boulezs 1945Notations for piano frequently inhabit the same elliptical, sharply-etchedpianistic and harmonic world.2 But what really surprised was the open-ing of the third movement of the 1939 Danses Rituelles, entitledDanseNuptiale. In spite of this being my first encounter with the music, this

opening seemed very familiar indeed: see Ex. 1.

1 JolivetMana andDanses Rituelles, performed by Jacqueline Mefano (piano) on ADDA 581042,issued in 1988.

2

For the most striking instance of this compare the opening bars ofMana with the figurationand harmony in the seventh of Boulezs Notations for piano. Furthermore the piano figura-tion, abruptness and aphoristic brevity of the whole opening movement ofMana are echoedin the first of the Boulez Notations.

Photo:AlphonseLeducArchive

Example 1:Bars 36 of JolivetsDanse Nuptialefollowed by harmonic summary of3-chord progression in those bars. copyright 1939 by Durand & Cie.


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In fact I had heard this harmony many times before, not in the musicof Jolivet but in several works by his Jeune France colleague OlivierMessiaen. Ex. 2 is from the opening song in Messiaens 1945 song cycleHarawi. As can be seen, here Messiaen, startlingly, takes the chord pro-gression opening Jolivets Danse Nuptiale note for note, at exact pitchlevel, thereafter immediately transposing it down one whole tone. Theentire progression, comprising both the original Jolivet sequence and itstransposed form, is then immediately repeated. The subject matter ofthe first song in Harawi the encounter between lovers may have sug-gested a parallel in Messiaens mind with the subject of Jolivets nuptialdance, which he therefore alluded to as music appropriate to the dra-matic situation in this first song of Harawi.3 At any rate, it is by far themost chromatic harmony in the entire song, which is otherwise in Gmajor with slight octotonic and other modal inflections.

In fact Messiaen had already used the chord progression from Jolivetin the first of his Trois Petites Liturgies (see Ex. 3a) at the words soleilde sang, doiseaux in broken arpeggio form. Again, in the context ofthe mild, predominantly diatonic atmosphere of the first section ofthe music, the sharply coloured chromaticism of this new harmonicprogression comes as a considerable surprise, probably intended byMessiaen as illustration of the sun-drenched imagery of his poem at thispoint.4

Whether or not Jolivet himself was ever aware of the extensive use towhich Messiaen put his progression,5 it continued to haunt Messiaensmusic for the next 14 years. In Messiaen it is often (though not always)followed, as in the example from Harawi, by its transposition down awhole tone, and usually occurs at moments of drama or tension. Ex. 3bshows its violent, pivotal intrusion into the piano workCantyodjay as

Example 2:Bars 56 of Messiens Harawi(song 1), piano part only. Theentire double progression isrepeated in bars 76. copyright 1948 by

A. Leduc & Cie.

3 When I gave this paper at the Messiaen Centenary Conference in Birmingham in June 2008,the French musicologist and Jolivet expert Lucie Kayas kindly informed me of her recentdiscovery that in 1941, whilst in Vichy after repatriation from his imprisonment in Silesia,

Messiaen gave a radio talk (together with fellow composer Daniel Lesur) about their JeuneFrance colleague Jolivet. Fascinatingly, and with most relevance to the present article, LucieKayas says that documents indicate Messiaen performed JolivetsDanse Nuptiale over the airduring this talk. This confirms that the work was both in Messiaens mind and at his finger-tips around these years.

4 Messiaen scholar Christopher Dingle has kindly drawn my attention to the prior use of thischord progression in Visions de lAmen (in movt. II, p. 13, last system, piano1 and in movt.V, p. 54, last bar, piano 2). These uses being more or less as accompanimental figuration, Istill count the progressions appearance in the openingLiturgie as its first main appearancein Messiaens music. Messiaens analysis of Visions refers to the progression as columns ofair in mobile resonances (like the wind [blowing] through trees) (see Trait de rhythme, decouleur et dortnithologie, ed. Loriod., Editions Leduc, Paris, 1996, vol. III. p. 238 and p. 261).Messiaen does not refer to the origins of the progression in Jolivet, here or anywhere else.

5 In Peter Hill and Nigel SimeonesMessiaen, there is a tantalizing quote from Messiaens diaryof 16March, just after completing the Liturgies, which shows Messiaen reminding himselfto give the score to Dsormire, Jolivet, Martenot, (and Delapierre). Dsormire was to

conduct the premire, Martenots sister Ginette was to play ondes in the premire, whilstDelapierre hosted Messiaens private analysis classes at this time. As there is no administra-tive reason why Jolivet should have been given a copy at such an early stage, this entry showsthat he and Messiaen were still in close and frequent contact on compositional matters.


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a barbaric dance in additive rhythm. This is perhaps the Jolivet progres-sions most extended appearance in Messiaens music, as it comprisesroughly 90% of the harmonic material of this entire section of the work(more than a page of the score). The same progression is re-used forthe repeated, hysterical exclamations on the words Ha! Ha! Ha! Soif!(Ha! Thirst!) in the first of the Cinq rechants (see score ofCinq Rechants,p.2 lowest system, p.5 middle system, p.9 middle system). On its finalappearance in Cinq Rechants, the last of the three chords has a majorthird added above its top pitch the only time Messiaen used this addedpitch B in the progression.

Its other appearances in Messiaens music are too numerous to men-tion here, but its final appearance in this form, as late as 19589 in thefinal version ofLa Rousserolle Effarvatte from the Catalogue dOiseaux, isnotably different from earlier uses in several regards (see Ex. 3c). First,here the progression is explicitly associated with an image from nature

the naphurs are the water lilies in the pools of the Sologne reed beds,which suggests that by this time the Jolivet chords had acquired a col-our-correspondence in Messiaens mind. Second, it is surrounded withphrases of a melody first used by Messiaen in the second movement ofthe Turangalla-Symphony (and subsequently re-used in Cinq Rechantsas well as elsewhere).6 Thirdly, this is by far the gentlest and most con-templative instance in Messiaens music of this densely chromaticprogression.

6 See full score of Turangalla-Symphonie, mvt. II, p. 44, last two bars et seq., parts for Flute 1and Bassoon 1.

Example 3a:Trois Petites Liturgies first movement,fig. 3: the same chord progressionused as broken chords and melodicline (returns identically in the finalsection of same movement).

copyright 1946 by Durand & Cie.

Example 3b:Canteyodjay, p. 12, middle twosystems. The top two staves havethe Jolivet progression, f irst at pitch,then transposed down a whole tone.(Entire sequence is repeated.) copyright 1954 by UniversalEdition, Vienna.


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Even this was not the end of the story. For Chronochromie, composedin 195960, Messiaen made a new adaptation of the Jolivet chords.Hitherto, the original 3-chord progression had been characterized byan inverted pedal G as the top pitch common to all three chords.7 But inChronochromie Messiaen got rid of the inverted pedal G, replacing it witha rotating pattern in the top part derived from the retrograde inversionof the lowest part of the chord progression. The newly swivelling, cir-

cular motion between treble and bass parts caused Messiaen to coin theterm turning chords for the resultant 3-chord progression (see Ex. 4).

Example 3c:pp. 256 ofLa Rousserole Effarvatte.The Jolivet progression and itstransposition down a whole tone aremarked with X. The surroundingmelody is from Turangalla. copyright 1960 by

A. Leduc & Cie.

7 This type of inverted pedal, effectively a treble drone below which complex harmonic pro-gressions are perceived, was used occasionally by Messiaen but was to become most charac-teristic of Boulez fromLe Marteau onwards, Stockhausen, Berio from the mid-1960s, as wellas of younger composers as varied as Jean-Claude Eloy, Gilbert Amy, Tristan Murail, Peter

Etvs and Michael Jarrell. Most of BoulezsRpons is composed against inverted pedals inthe treble, especially a high B (two octaves above middle C). Most of Stockhausens Gruppenuses a (12-note) sequence of such inverted pedals, and the whole of the first act of his opera

Donnerstag aus Lichtuses a pedal high C in the same register.

Example 4:

Gensis of the turning chords fromthe original Jolivet progression.


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Unlike the Jolivet original, which Messiaen always used either at itsoriginal pitch level (or its octave duplicate), or else transposed down awhole tone, these turning chords could now be used at any pitch levelat all, as if by altering them as shown in Ex.4, Messiaen had definitivelytaken ownership of the progression and freed it of any previous associa-tions. At any rate, it features prominently in the harmonic vocabularyof not only Chronochromiebut also Sept Haka, Couleurs de la Cit Cleste,La Transfiguration, and all Messiaens later works. In fact the turningchords are the last harmony to be heard inLa Transfiguration before the

concluding E-major chord.8

The surprisingly long-range ramifications of this chord progres-sion from JolivetsDanses Rituelles lead one to suspect that it is not theonly instance of Messiaen borrowing from this composer. The earlierpiano workMana seems the logical place to start searching, not least asMessiaen famously wrote a laudatory preface to the published score.9The search turns out to be a fruitful one. To anyone with a good work-ing knowledge of Turangalla, Ex.5 should be self-explanatory. It isevident from this that the main theme of movement 4, Chant damourII, was derived by Messiaen conjoining two separate melodic figures inMana. As before, the pitch-classes are adopted exactly, not transposed,thus making the debt to Jolivet absolutely open and clear. (The rhythmic

syntax is quite different, however here Messiaens rhythms are squarerthan Jolivets.). Having collated these two melodic passages fromManainto a new melody of his own, Messiaen appended the Turangallastatue-themes upper notes to round the melody off.10

8 When I gave this paper in June 2008 at the Birmingham Messiaen Conference, colleaguespointed out that the musicologist Cheong Wai-Ling, who has done much research onMessiaens chords, had spotted that the turning chords used from Chronochromie onwardsare a later form of the progression first used in Visions de lAmen. I have not to date been ableto see the relevant article by Cheong. The precise analysis of the connexion between thetwo forms of the chord progression in this article is my own. To the best of my knowledge,neither Wai-Ling nor anyone else has until now noticed that this chord progression was bor-rowed note-for-note from JolivetsDanse Nuptiale.

9 See Messiaen, Introduction auMana dAndr Jolivet, in the score of JolivetMana (EditionsCostallat, Paris, 1946). This was a slightly revised version of an article,Le Mana de Jolivet,originally published in the musical review La Sirne in December 1937. It was recentlyreprinted in the two-volume edition of Jolivets complete writingsAndr Jolivet: crits, ed. C.

Jolivet-Erlih (Paris: Editions Delatour France, 2006), vol. II, pp. 75961.10 The statue theme duly plays a crucial role in the f inal tutti of this movement (see Turangalla-Symphonie, full score, pp. 156159, parts for trombones and tuba) where its appearance clari-fies its relationship to the main theme of the movement, as both occur simultaneously.

Example 4 continued:Gensis of the turning chords fromthe original Jolivet progression.

Example 5:Genesis of scherzo theme of ChantdAmour IIby the combination oftwo fragments of JolivetsMana,with the addition of the statuetheme. copyright 1946 byditions Costallat.


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A less prominent but no less definite adaptation is found in the

opening page ofMana, from which Messiaen adapted a broken-chordaggregate with minimal change as the refrain chord for the song of theOrtolan Bunting in Le traquet stapazin from the Catalogue dOiseaux.

Again the exactness of pitch-level makes the borrowing absolutely clear.This chord pattern is very prominent in Messiaens piece as it occursnumerous times in the work (see Exx. 6a and 6b).

Example 5 continued:Genesis of scherzo theme of ChantdAmour IIby the combination oftwo fragments of JolivetsMana,with the addition of the statuetheme. copyright 1946 byditions Costallat.

Example 6a:Extract from JolivetMana, lastsystem of movement 1, bars 13. copyright 1946 byditions Costallat.


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Returning to the final movement, Pgase, of Jolivets Mana, thevery prolonged octave-doubled monody at its heart, already cited as asource for the theme of Turangallas Chant dAmour II, had an effect onan earlier Messiaen composition,Force et Agilit des Corps Glorieuxfromthe 1939 organ cycleLes Corps Glorieux. The radical reduction of mostof this movement to an octave-doubled monody was surely prompted

by Messiaens admiration for the similarly obsessive monodies in thePgase movement ofMana. More specifically, the persistently repeat-ed, roulade-upbeat which starts the majority of phrases in Messiaensmovement is in fact a transposition up a whole tone of the same figure

starting many of the phrases in JolivetsPgase (compare Exx. 7a and 7b).Messiaens singular success in building an entire movement from a pow-erful octave-doubled monody, probably inspired by JolivetsPgase, hadimportant consequences in his music. TheDanse de Fureurfrom his nextwork, the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (19401) consists of just such anoctave-doubled monody, up to that time a unique texture in a chambermusic movement.

Jolivet introduced important concepts of harmonic generation,derived from acoustics, which were to have a crucial effect not only onMessiaen but, via him, on many later composers. It seems that Jolivetderived these concepts from his reading of Helmholtzs theoreticalwritings.11In any case, Jolivet used the acoustical phenomenon of differ-ential tones as a source of harmonization. The following example (Ex.8)

11 The important bookAndr Jolivet Portraits, ed. Lucie Kayas and Leatitia Chassain-Dolliou(Actes Sud, 1994) clarifies that Jolivet had a working knowledge of Helmholtzs theoreti-cal writings. (See article in this volume by Bridget Conrad Le Language Musical dAndr

Jolivet, pp. 87122, esp. pp. 1034). I am also grateful to Christopher Dingle for pointing outthat Jolivets knowledge of Helmholtz would surely have been due to his teacher EdgardVarse, with whom he studied for several years in the later 1920s and early 30s.

12 Conrad, op. cit., pp. 1035. That example is a clarification of the example in Jolivet Rponse

une enqute in Contrepoints (January 1946), recently reprinted in the two-volume edition ofhis complete writings (seeC. Jolivet-Erlih, op. cit., Vol.1, pp. 1904). Serge Guts analysis ofthis same passage is erroneous (see Serge Gut,La Groupe de Jeune France, Honor Champion,Paris, 1977, p. 53).

Example 6b:Extract from MessiaenLe TraquetStrapazin, page 1, second system,

bar 2 (this music recurs six timesin the work). copyright 1960 by

A. Leduc & Cie.

Example 7a:Extract from JolivetMana, lastmovement (Pegase), p. 15, bar2. Note the upward flourish (thisrecurs many times). copyright 1946 byditions Costallat.

Example 7b:Opening of MessiaenForce etAgilitdes Corps Glorieux. The flourishat the start is the Jolivet flourishtransposed up a whole tone. Almostevery phrase of the movement startswith it. copyright 1942 by

A. Leduc & Cie.


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is based upon an article by Jolivet published in 1946, properly explainedfor the first time by Bridget Conrad.12 This shows a chord the secondof the three chords Messiaen borrowed from theDanse Nuptiale beingre-harmonized with a lower-tritone in the bass on its re-appearance inthe middle of the piece. As shown in the example Jolivet derived theadded lower tritone by subtracting the difference between the frequen-cies of two pitches in the original chord, and then going on to produce asecondary difference tone.

Jolivet referred to these two added lower pitches variously as result-ants infrieurs or resultants graves.13 It has been established that Jolivetand Messiaen had an exceptionally close friendship in the later 1930s,which included long one-to-one technical conversations.14 It seemsclear that at some point Jolivet explained this novel harmonic procedurein detail to Messiaen, as the latter used precisely these means, and thesame terminology, to generate his chords of contracted resonance.

My discovery of exactly how acoustically these chords were generatedis shown in Ex.9 Messiaens own explanation was never acousticallyprecise. Messiaen takes a chord a dominant ninth in A-flat major thenappends each note of that chord with an anticipating appogiatura ofhis own chosing. From amongst the pitches of both these chords, hethen selects four which are used to derive, by means of calculating theiracoustical difference tones, what he terms double son resultant grave15 aterm directly borrowed from Jolivet. Finally, this double low resultantsound is octave transposed into the middle register to sit next to a pairof chords using all the pitch content of the two chords in the second

13 See C.Jolivet-Erlih, op. cit., p, 191.14

See for example Hilda Jolivets memoir of an evening-long visit to the Messiaen householdin 1934, dominated by a long private conversation between Jolivet and Messiaen (cited intranslation in Peter Hill and Nigel Simeone,Messiaen, Yale 2006, p. 57).

15 See Messiaen Trait (op. cit.) vol. VII, pp. 1501.

Example 8


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system of Ex.9. The resultant, densely chromatic chord progressionwas widely utilized by Messiaen for the rest of his life. This is not aninstance of direct adaptation of pitch-content from Jolivet, but rather anexample of a precise and, for its time, unusual procedure for harmonicgeneration from Jolivet being taken on board by Messiaen for his ownpurposes.16

16 This proves Bridgit Conrad right in her assertion that the area ofsons resultants infrieurs wasan area of the probable influence of Jolivet on Messiaen. (Conrad, op. cit., pp. 1045, mytrans.) Readers may wonder at the likelihood of Messiaen consulting tables of frequencies

and calculating difference tones. Yet he was very close friends with Jolivet who, as proved inEx. 7, did just that. It is probable that Messiaen turned to Jolivet for assistance in calculatingsuch sons resultants anyhow. Messiaen scholar Nigel Simeone agrees with me that this is themost likely truth of the matter in this case.

Example 9:Messiaens account of thegeneration of chords of contractedresonance together with a newacoustic explanation of his sonsresultants infrieurs using theprinciples of Jolivets sons resultantsas shown in Ex. 8.


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The procedure of utilizing combination tones tones which are theacoustical result of the difference or sum of the frequencies of otherpitches was to become a mainstay of much later music. In the formof ring modulation it became a standard procedure in the analogueelectronic studio from the 1950s onwards and remains in use today incomputer music in various forms (notably frequency modulation (FM)).It was also used from 1975 onwards by various composers in France,Germany and elsewhere as one of the staple procedures for generat-ing harmonic sequences in what is now termed spectral music. Thus

Jolivets application of this procedure was one of his most far-sightedcompositional ideas.

Jolivet also sometimes worked from the opposite direction, usinga pair of low bass tones to generate overtones which are used as thesource of harmony in middle and higher registers. Ex. 10a shows such aprocedure from theDanse Initiatique, the first of theDanse Rituelles. Thiswas cited by Jolivet himself in his aforementionedRponse une enqute,where he explains that the harmonics of the two low bass pitches areeither picked up by the upper harmonies or deliberately contradicted

by them.17 To anyone familiar with Messiaens music, Ex.10a will bynow look strikingly close to Ex. 10b, the piano solo opening the secondmovement of the Quatuor (later reprised thematically in the seventhmovement of the same work). Messiaens own account of the genera-tion of this passage is confused: in the Technique he refers to the two low

bass pitches as a rsonance infrieure,18 which in the literal sense (i.e. dif-ference tones) they are not. In the later Trait he states (also incorrectly)that the first of the upper chords in this progression is the second chordof contracted resonance.19 Ex. 10b is sufficiently close musically to Ex.10a the two bass pitches are indeed absolutely identical for one con-fidently to assert that this passage in Messiaen was also derived from thecited passage in Jolivet, even if the derivation is not so exact as in earlier

examples.

Jolivets process of using dense low bass pitch formations to gener-ate acoustic overtones which generate the harmony for a passage was

yet another device which became a staple diet ofmusique spectrale from

17 See Jolivet article (already cited in note 12) in C. Jolivet-Erlih, op. cit., pp. 1904.18 Messiaen, Technique (op. cit.), p. 72, text to example 218.19 See Messiaen Trait (op. cit.), vol. VII, p. 150.

Example 10a:Jolivets example from the firstDanseRituelle (page 3, last system). Two

low sounds spaced together in such away as to engender series of harmonicswhich complete each other, allowing oneto superimpose on this sonic backgroundchords with distant tonalities relatingto the harmonics of one or other of thetwo bass sounds. These upper chords inturn reinforce the harmonic series of thetwo low bass notes. (Jolivet, Rponse une enqute, 1946) copyright 1939 by Durand & Cie

Example 10b:Messiaen: end of opening bar of

movement II of Quatuor pour la findu Temps. Note the similar chordformations in the upper parts andthe identical pitches in the extreme

bass. copyright 1942 by Durand & Cie.


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1975 onwards. It is used to generate harmony for several sections ofTristan Murails piano workTerritoires de lOubli (1977); and also usedto generate the harmonies of the third section of the same composersseminal orchestral workGondwana (1980). The second section of GrardGriseysPartiels (1975) also uses this technique. Jolivets indirect role inlaying down these important groundwork tools for spectral music hasnot so far been properly recognized. His later reactionary stance has cer-tainly contributed to this serious error in the music history of the past40 years.20

We may also surmise that Messiaens devising of a two-octave widechord of resonance comprising harmonics 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, and15 of a low fundamental tone, adjusted to equal temperament21 wasprobably prompted by Jolivets devising a special mode similarly derivedfrom the first 15 overtones of a low fundamental, compressed into asingle octave.22

Messiaen was always perfectly open about his readiness to adaptmusic by composers from past history as the source of chords ormelodic figures his well-known and widespread adaptation of a frag-ment from the opening melody of Moussorgskys Boris Godunov is themost obvious instance of this.23 If, as shown above, Messiaen was sur-prisingly ready to adopt or adapt chord progressions and even melodicfigures from a living contemporary such as Jolivet, one is prompted towonder what other modern composers he borrowed from, especiallyas he himself never commented upon this practice publicly and otherresearchers have not yet looked much into this matter. Ex. 11a shows apassage from an organ work (Paraphrase pour lassomption, No.35 of thecycle Lorgue mystique) by his senior contemporary Charles Tournemire,whom Messiaen knew personally. (Messiaen occasionally replacedTournemire as organist at St. Clotilde).2425 Ex.11b shows the chord pro-gression in the lower parts of Ex. 11a, as cited by Messiaen himself in a

20 Ironically, in view of his influence on early Boulez (see Note 2, above) after the war Jolivetquickly became one of the main opponents of Boulez, and especially of the Domaine

Musical, as his own music became more conservative in manner and substance. What effectthis change of stance had upon his hitherto close relations with Messiaen has not been clari-fied. In a radio talk in the 1960s, Jolivet played an extract from Messiaens Oiseaux Exotiques,praising it as quite simply remarkable music (see C. Jolivet-Erlih, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 409).Messiaen said next to nothing about Jolivets post-War output, a silence that is most elo-quent given that he continued to refer toMana andDanses Rituelles with extravagant praise.In his conversations with Almut Rssler, speaking of the forming of the Jeune France groupof composers, Messiaen said he specifically recruited Jolivet to the group as at that time[1936] he was a real thunderbolt, a composer of the extreme avant-garde, much more ter-rible than later on(see Rssler Contributions to the Spiritual World of Olivier Messiaen, transl.B. Dagg and N. Poland, p. 105). I take this remark, plus his persistent references to the earlypiano works, as tacit admission on Messiaens part that he did not find much of Jolivets

post-War output of interest, but was much too polite to say so, even after Jolivets death. Hisbrief memorial tribute to Jolivet, reproduced in translation on p. 303 of Hill and SimeonesMessiaen (Yale, 2006), confirms this by dwelling at length on the Danses Rituelles (especiallytheDanse Nuptiale), whilst only mentioning the post-War symphonies and concertos in pass-ing.

21 As explained by Messiaen in Technique de mon language musical (trans. Satterfield, EditionsLeduc, 1966, new single-volume edition), p. 70, Ex. 208.

22 As explained by Jolivet in Gense dun renouveau musical, a conference given at the Sorbonneon 14 January 1937, reprinted in C. Jolivet-Erlih, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 5373. The passage deal-ing with the mode of harmonics 115 is on p.60 of this volume. The volume referred to innote 11 clarifies that this mode underpins the whole of the last of the Danses Rituelles, a factof which I think Messiaen must have been made aware by Jolivet (see Conrad, op.cit., pp.9899). Serge Gut spotted a similarity in their approaches on this matter, but not that Messiaenderived this technique from Jolivet, which is surely the case: see Serge Gut,La Groupe de Jeune

France (Paris: Honor Champion, 1977), p. 52.23 See Messiaen Technique (op.cit.), pp. 323.24

Olivier Messiaen, personal communication, Bath, 28 May1986.25 Nigel Simeone has kindly alerted me to the fact that Messiaen published a review ofTournemiresLorgue mystique, specifically praising thisParaphrase-Carillon (MessiaenLorguemystique de Tournemire in Syrinx, May 1938, cited in Hill and SimeoneMessiaen, p. 403).


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section dealing with chord progressions in his treatise Technique de monlanguage musical.26 Exx.11c and 11d show that Messiaen adopted thisstrikingly resonant polytonal progression which does retrospectivelysound much more like Messiaen than Tournemire to my ears into theQuatuor pour la fin du Temps and several of the Vingt Regards. TheRegarddu Temps makes particularly obsessive use of Tournemires progression,no fewer than six times in all. As with the Jolivet example, Messiaenadopts the progression with no change of pitch-class or even of spacing,save placing the pitch-class E at the top of the first chord (Tournemirehad placed it in the middle, as had Messiaen himself in the example inTechnique).27

26 See Messiaen Technique, (op.cit), p. 78, Ex. 270. No mention is made of Tournemire in theaccompanying text.

27 Coincidentally, this Tournemire passage was reproduced in a recent article by AndrewThomson in Choir and Organ March/April 2008 (Andrew Thomson The dove descending, pp.1821) as an example of birdsong music referring to the repeated high treble figures in

sextuplets. Thomson sees these figures, plausibly, as anticipatory of Messiaens later use ofbirdsong in his organ pieces. However, Thomson gives no indication that Tournemires dis-sonant chord-progression underneath the birdsong was literally borrowed by Messiaen inseveral of his own pieces.

Example 11a:Extract from the middle section ofTournemiresParaphrase-Carillonfor organ, p. 18, middle system,

bar 1. Note the bracketed chordprogression repeated many times inthe work.

copyright 1936 by A. Leduc &Cie./United Music Publishers Ltd.

Example 11b:Example 270, p. 78 of MessiaensTechnique a literal quote fromthe pair of chords dominating themiddle section of Tournemires

Paraphrase-Carillon.

Example 11c:Extract from piano part ofmovement II of Quatuor pour la findu Temps (p. 10, last 2 bars). The

bracketed pair of chords is from theTournemireParaphrase (with theE in the first chord moved up anoctave). This chord sequence recursin both this movement and in thetwo climactic development sectionsof movement VII. copyright 1942 by Durand & Cie.

Example 11d:The same progression (bracketed)as used for the refrain theme inMessiaensRegard du Temps. copyright 1947 by Durand & Cie.


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What is fascinating about this borrowing is that, as with one of theJolivet examples, it originated at a time when Messiaen could not havehad access to the original source, as he was a prisoner of war in Silesia.Therefore this example shows just how much in Messiaens bones theTournemire piece was.28 Furthermore, the progression plays a quiteimportant cyclical role in the Quatuor like the second of the Jolivetexamples, it appears twice in the second movement of the work, andis then recycled twice in the development sections of the culminatingseventh movement. All this suggests that at a time when Messiaen byforce of circumstance was thrown back upon his own resources, he wasmost acutely aware of the memories of sounds, chords and music whichmeant most to him before the war, and this had a big effect in enlarginghis harmonic palette significantly at this unusual period.29 It should beemphasized that both harmonically and otherwise the Quatuoris by farthe most harmonically dense and adventurous score Messiaen had com-posed up to that time.

Messiaen referred to the entire piano part in the middle section ofthe Quatuors second movement as a cascade of blue-orange chords30

which might suggest a colour identification with the Tournemireprogression. Yet his use of it in the refrain ofRegard du Temps is verydifferent Messiaen himself describes this theme as being short, cold,strange, like the egg-shaped heads of de Chirico.31The sharp dissonanc-es and bald parallel fifths in the bass do indeed give this progression anunsettling character which suits its use in this strange movement espe-cially well.

Messiaens idiosyncratic views on the history of opera were nota-ble for the exclusion of any 20th-century operas savePelleas and BergsWozzeck.32It seems that Serge Gut, in his fine book aboutLa Jeune France,was the first to point out in print that Messiaen adapted the 3-chord leit-motif first heard in Act I, Scene II of Wozzeck as the refrain chords for

the second movement of the Messe de la Pentecte.33 Messiaen himselfwas quite open in his classes about his affection for this progression andhis employment of it in his own music.34 Despite that, his long use ofthis progression in many pieces from 1950 to 1986 has not been noticed

28 The late Robin Freeman speculated passingly in Interpretations of Messiaens Cataloguedoiseaux (Tempo 192, April 1995, p. 10), in more detail in Trompette dun Ange Secret:Olivier Messiaen and the Culture of Ecstasy (Contemporary Music Review Vol. 14 Parts 34,

Music and Mysticism II, p. 88) that Messiaen was influenced by the bracing jolt of har-monies in a late organ work of Tournemire,Les cloches de Chteauneuf du Faou, composed

subsequently toLorgue mystique, but he does not instance any exact correspondence. (Ed.)29 Messiaen often said that running through music he loved in his head saved his sanity whilsthe was in Silesia. He would run through an entire act of DebussysPellas, at night, finding tohis surprise that he knew words, music and even the orchestration by heart (conversationin an archive film from the INA in Oliver de Milles film about MessiaenLa liturgie de cristal,Ideal Audience (Juxtapositions series) 2007). The borrowings from Tournemire and Jolivetin the Quatuorsuggest that the relevant pieces by those composers also formed a prominentpart of his Silesian internal memory concerts. Interestingly, music by these composers wasnot amongst the much-talked-of kit bag of scores in his possession when he was captured.

30 See Preface to full score of Quatuor pour la fin du Temps, mvt. II.31 See preface to score ofVingt Regards, mvt. IX.32 Despite his love of Wozzeck, Messiaen loathed Bergs Lulu in which he found, as he told

Almut Rssler, the music is academic and serial with a silly tone-row which suggests onlyblack and white that doesnt work, that s a kind of kitsch classicism (see Rssler, op.cit.,p. 143). One imaginesLulus widespread use of jazz will also not have endeared the opera tohim.

33

See Serge Gut,La Groupe de Jeune France p. 104.34 Information provided by George Benjamin, who attended Messiaens class at the ParisConservatoire between 19768 and heard Messiaens analyses ofLa Transfiguration andDesCanyons, where this progression occurs prominently.


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or commented upon in Messiaen literature until now. His first use ofit in the above-mentioned movement of the Messe in 1950 may have

been prompted by the first performance ofWozzeck in Paris in Autumnthe same year, conducted by Jascha Horenstein.35 The exhibition cata-logueDas Himmlische Jerusalem36 included a photograph of a page fromMessiaens annotated vocal score ofWozzeck coincidentally the open-ing of Act I, Scene II.37 From what I can decipher of this frustratinglysmall photo, it appears that Messiaen annotates the 3-chord leitmotifwith the comment theme noir (harmonique) and gives each of the threechords (which I have labeled A, B and C) an analytic description which Ihave attempted to summarize in Ex.12a.38 Ex.12b shows Messiaens useof the progression inMesse. In this first instance, Messiaen adapted eachchord of the progression very slightly, as shown some notes are trans-posed down one octave and one pitch is also raised a semitone but itsorigins in the Berg are unmistakable.

Messiaen then left the progression unused until composing LaTransfiguration (19659), where it features prominently in both of thechorales concluding each of the works two septernaries. Ex.12c showsits occurrence in the first of the chorales (movement VII). By this timeMessiaen has deleted Bergs chord B altogether, instead proceedingstraight from chord A to chord C, then transposing each of them beforecadencing backwards from chords C to A in an elegant arc of harmonies.Unlike theMesse example, in most uses fromLa Transfiguration onwardsMessiaen restores all pitches of chords A and C to their spacing in Bergsoriginal progression. All subsequent uses of this progression followthis practice Bergs chord B is omitted, and transposing sequences areformed from Bergs A and C chords. Ex. 12d is from the twice-occur-ring brass chorale in movement III ofDes Canyons aux Etoiles, one ofMessiaens most elaborate uses of these chords.

Messiaens permanent omission of Bergs chord B from the late

1960s onwards appears to have been driven by an impulse to render theprogression more sonorous and luminous. Chords A and C both fea-ture a resonant major 10th in the bass, giving them a rich colour whichcontrasts sharply with the tenser dissonances and consequent darkercolours of chord B featuring a minor10th in the bass and prominentsevenths, fourths and tritones. By the time of his final and most extend-ed use of this progression as a major element in the 10th movement oftheLivre du Saint Sacrement, Messiaen is using it to depict the radianceof Christs resurrection see Ex. 12e. This brilliantly coloured music isnow a world away from the mysterious initial use of the entire progres-sion in theMesse, where it depicted things visible and invisible, let alonefrom the its desolate use by Berg as what Messiaen himself had termed

a theme noir. The sequence of extracts in Ex.12 show stage by stage a

35 Boulez mentions going to all the 15 rehearsals for this performance in a letter to John Cage see Nattiez and Piencikowski (ed.)Pierre Boulez et John Cage: Correspondance et Documents,Schott Verlag and the Paul Sacher Stiftung, 2002, p. 143, letter not dated ascribed to theend of summer 1950.

36 See Olivier Messiaen, La Cit cleste Das Himmlischer Jerusalem, ed. Thomas Daniel Schlee andDietrich Kmper (Cologne: Wienand Verlag), p. 117.

37 The commentary to this photograph in the book makes no allusion to the special relevanceof this particular page to Messiaens own music; see Schlee and Kmper, op. cit., p. 116.

38 Readers will note Messiaens attempts to classify atonal harmony as appoggiaturas to tonal

chords, a device which remained typical of his harmonic analyses see Alexander Goehrsaccount of Messiaen doing the same thing whilst analyzing other atonal music by compos-ers of the Second Viennese School (Goehr Finding the Key, Faber and Faber 1998, p. 55).Goehr attended Messiaens Conservatoire class in the years 19556.


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fascinating process of adoption, creative adaptation and transformationby Messiaen of found material from the most successful opera of histime.39

39 Readers interested in further uses of this progression by Messiaen, each quite different,should be referred to movements of the organ Mditations (1969 especially at the startand near the conclusion of Movement VII), as well as to Scene III of the opera St. FrancoisdAssise. There is a putative usage of them (the bass dyads are the same, the upper pitchesmore free) in several sections ofLa Buse Variable from the Catalogue dOiseaux (1959). Anexceptional instance of the Berg chords being put to very different use, along with simi-lar chordal sources in Messiaens own Chronochromie , Dutilleuxs Tout un monde lointainand Brittens Peter Grimes, can be seen in George Benjamins Ringed by the Flat Horizon, inthe full orchestral chorale commencing at letter GG, p. 48 of the first edition of the score

(Faber Music, 1981). This is a perfect, if unusual, example of a younger composer followingMessiaens example in adapting chordal formations from an unexpected variety of sources.As with Messiaen, the powerful music Benjamin forms from them is paradoxically whollyoriginal and unmistakably characteristic of Benjamins musical style.

Example 12a:Messiaens analysis byresolutions onto tonal chordsof the Berg 3-chord theme fromWozzeck as (faintly) reproducedin Schlee, 1998, p. 117.

Example 12b:Messiaen first adaptation of Bergsprogression as the refrain for theOffertoire from theMesse. copyright 1953 by

A. Leduc & Cie.

Example 12c:Messiaen second adaptation ofBergs progression in movement 6ofLa Transfiguration (chorus andorchestra, p. 163). Chords A and Care transposed, while chord B has

been eliminated. The progression is

re-used in the f inal movement. copyright 1972 by

A. Leduc & Cie.

Example 12d:Messiaen,Des Canyons, movementIII brass chorale (p. 66 recurslater in the movement) copyright 1978 by

A. Leduc & Cie.


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40 See note 19.41 Conversation in July 1988 at the Darmstadt Summer School, where this quartet was per-

formed by the Arditti String Quartet.

To conclude this preliminary sortie into what promises to be a richarea of future exploration, I would like to suggest an unexpected sourcefor the opening of one of Messiaens first wholly mature works, LaNativit du Seigneur. Messiaen always cited the melody of this opening asone of many uses by him of a melodic fragment from near the openingofBoris Godunov.40In fact the music of a different, later Russian compos-er would now seem to have been its true source. In 1988, the composerChris Dench drew my attention to Scriabins late piano pieceEtranget,

not in connection with Messiaen but in connection with the title of hisown (otherwise unrelated) string quartet Strangeness.41 To my surprise,the opening of the Scriabin piece fitted under the hands in an almostexactly identical manner to the opening ofLa Nativit readers areencouraged to play the two extracts in Ex.13a and 13b for themselves.The Messiaen in Ex.13b has been transposed down one octave to givethe effect of Messiaens prescribed 4-foot registration.

The comparison is startling. The octotonicism in both examples is notin itself cause for remark, given how often both Scriabin and Messiaenemployed octotonic modal formations. Yet the similarity of pitch levels,pitch and interval contents, the very similar intervallic content of the

Example 12e:Messiaens final use of the Berg-derived progression in bars1,4,8 of the opening page of LaRsurrection du Christ from the

Livre du Saint Sacrement(1984). Asfor Exx. 12c and d, only the first twochords of Bergs progression areused, now transposed to start on a

bass C#, so as to f it the final home

of the movement in F sharp major. copyright 1986 by

A. Leduc & Cie.


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grace-note formations in each (quasi-inverted from the Scriabin into theMessiaen) and the identical sequential repetition of each down a minorthird, strongly suggest that Messiaen consciously or unconsciouslyrecalled the Scriabin piece and converted it into the striking opening ofhis first large organ cycle. (The opening is reprised at a different pitchlevel at the conclusion of the first movement, with the same sequence).Nonetheless the musical effects of Exx.13a and b are notably different

Scriabins quixotic strangeness is worlds away from the intimate devo-tion of Messiaens Le Vierge et lenfant. Messiaens musical results, farfrom being eclectic or stylistically incongruent, are thoroughly and last-ingly typical of him and of no-one else.

I have concluded from these numerous and surprising instances ofcreative adaptation from modern composers harmonies and melodiesthat Messiaens view of all music was highly and engagingly subjec-tive. Such borrowings are indicative of a strong creative persona, notthe reverse. Messiaen himself would rightly have seen these as acts ofhomage to composers whose work he deeply admired, and I certainly

imagine that is how Andr Jolivet, for one, would have received themhad he noticed (and it is hard to imagine he never did).42Messiaens owncreative identity was so strongly defined that any other composerswork was inevitably filtered through his own highly developed ears andmusical tastes. Hence in each of the above examples, the extracts fromMessiaen sound entirely and immediately like him. Perhaps, in effect, allMessiaen could hear in other music was Messiaen. In reality, Messiaen

borrowed and adapted from no-one at all. Rather Jolivet, Berg, Scriabinand Tournemire metaphorically borrowed the progressions and melo-dies, ahead of time, from Messiaen.

42 Interestingly, Jolivet himself made no further use of his striking 3-chord progression in Ex.1after theDanses Rituelles.

Example 13a:Scriabin,tranget, op. 63 no. 2,opening (refrain theme).

Example 13b:Messiaen,La Nativit, opening.(The music has been transposeddown an octave to clarify the effectof the registration.) The music

strongly resembles the Scriabin inmany respects both pitch contentand in harmonic sequence. copyright 1936 by

A. Leduc & Cie.

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