Unpublished assignment of Messiaen studies.
Warning:
This work by The nights under the Southern Cross is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License
pp. 20-27
Harmony
“Seek at length for the ‘true harmony’: it alone will give the melody the passion it demands.”[i]
~ Oliver Messiaen
Functional Harmony
…as traditional symphonic procedure arose from a harmonic practice which depended on progression and on the tensions and relaxation created by the principle of dissonance and resolution. For Messiaen, on the other hand, harmony is decorative rather than functional… this lends his music a static rather than a dynamic quality…[ii].
Functional harmony is a teleological and hierarchical tonal system. .....
The tense and dynamic of contrasting played an extremely important role in traditional western music. The Classical system, with its twelve major and twelve minor keys, may be compared to a house with twenty-four rooms, the modulations being equivalent to corridors leading from one to the next. The classical composer clearly established the home key, then set out to the next-related area. For him the chief charm of modulation was “the getting there, and not the arrival itself.” The home area, the contrasting area, and the corridor between were spaciously designed.[iii]
After centuries, the audience had been taught, and became accustomed to the system, so “by then the system had become familiar, and listeners needed less time to grasp the tonality”. In fact, a well-trained western classical music listener would automatically anticipate that the music modulated and came back to the home key, structurally developing and recapitulating the motives and the subjects. .....
Based on this well developed and established formula, the later composers could use ambiguous movements, and unexpected modulation to create the tension and dynamic in their compositions. The peak of this development in major-minor tonal system can be found in Wagner’s music. “Wagner’s harmonies – ambiguous, volatile, seductive – represented a new level of musical sensibility. His Tristan and Isolde, couched in a language of unprecedented expressively, carried the chromatic idiom to the limit of its possibilities.”[iv] Nevertheless, it also brought out the fact that it was the utmost point in the major-minor tonal system. “[Wagner] His treatment of key tonality and chromaticism, producing at times a measure of polytonality and verging on atonality, provided incentive for later composers to move into dodecaphony and pantonality / atonality.”[v]
..... the notion of the word “atonality” is doubtful. As Schoenberg declaimed: “I regard the expression atonal as meaningless. Atonal can only signify something that does not correspond to the nature of tone. A piece of music will necessarily always by tonal insofar as a relation exists from tone to tone.”[vi]. ..... “The alleged tones believed to be foreign to harmony do not exist. They are merely tones foreign to our accepted harmonic system.”[vii]
In Messiaen’s case, he established his own tonal system. Messiaen’ harmony was tonal, if the audience could only hear in the way Messiaen did, and be familiar with his harmony as an accepted harmonic system, then indeed the teleological and hierarchical tonal sense would explode into the aural experience. Moreover, one would be able to hear what Messiaen meant by modes with limited transpositions which would produce the “atmosphere of several tonalities, without polytonality, the composer being free to give predominance to one of the tonalities or to leave the tonal impression unsettled.”[viii]
“Messiaen has been criticized for harmonic inconsistency in the way he juxtaposes harsh or complex dissonances in the same piece as consonant-sounding harmonies. This criticism is misconceived because, however consonant or dissonant the harmony, Messiaen always thinks of it in terms of timbre or colour.”[ix] Although the criticism is misconceived, nonetheless, it is doubtful and arguable that Messiaen always thinks of the dissonances and consonances in terms of timbre or colour. .....
In symphonic music, any accumulation of tension with its consequent resolution could be called ‘anacrusis – stress – désinence’, the accumulation of tension being achieved through the use of dissonance as well as dynamic accent and rhythm. Since a dissonance is not possible for Messiaen (in the classical sense) he is thrown back entirely on dynamic accent, rhythm or, in some case, melodic contour in order to define this device.[x]
Therefore, it is arguable that Messiaen needed to be “thrown back entirely on dynamic accent, rhythm or in some case, melodic contour” [xi] in order to achieve the accumulation of tension. “Since a dissonance is not possible for Messiaen (in the classical sense)…”[xii]......
Modes of Limited Transpositions
The great attention Messiaen gave to the ‘modes of limited transpositions’ is another important technique of his harmonic language. What attracted him is still the strange charm of impossibilities, and this is one of the other impossibilities that would be realized in the ‘vertical direction’[1]. Within this modes, the ambiguity of the tonality leave the composer freedom whether to settle a central tonic, or leave the atmosphere unsettled. “They are at once in the atmosphere of several tonalities, without polytonality, the composer being free to give predominance to one of the tonalities or to leave the tonal impression unsettled.”[xiii]
The charm of impossibilities took the central position in his musical language ..... which serves Messiaen’s notion of music - “it is a glistening music we seek, giving to the aural sense voluptuously refined pleasures.”[xiv], precisely. Together with the nonretrogradable rhythms, they were where the charm resides.
This charm, at once voluptuous and contemplative, resides particularly in certain mathematical impossibilities of the modal and rhythmic domains. Modes which cannot be transposed beyond a certain number of transpositions[2], because one always falls again into the same note; rhythms which cannot be used in retrograde, because in such a case one finds the same order of values again – these are two striking impossibilities.[xv]
Realizing both the vertical direction, which is the sound, and the horizontal direction, which is the time, in his music were interlocked and taking equally importance.
"These modes realized in the vertical direction (transposition) what nonretrogradable rhythms realized in the horizontal direction (retrogradation). In fact, these modes cannot be transposed beyond a certain number of transpositions without falling again into the same notes, enharmonically speaking; likewise, these rhythms cannot be read in a retrograde sense without one’s finding again exactly the same order of values as in the right sense. These modes cannot be transposed because they are – without polytonality – in the modal atmosphere of several keys at once and contain in themselves small transpositions; these rhythms cannot be retrograded because they contain in themselves small retrogradations. These modes are divisible into symmetrical groups; these rhythms, also, with this difference: the symmetry of the rhythmic groups is a retrograde symmetry. Finally, the last note of each group of these modes is always common with the first of the following group; and the group of these rhythms frame a central value common to each group. The analogy is now complete.
Let us think now of the hearer of our modal and rhythmic music; he will not have time at the concert to inspect the nontranspositions and the nonretrogradations, and at that moment, these questions will not interest him further; to be charmed will be his only desire. And that is precisely what will happen; in spite of himself he will submit to the strange charm of impossibilities: a certain effect of tonal ubiquity in the nontransposition, a certain unity of movement (where beginning and end are confused because identical) in the nonretrogradation, all things which will lead him progressively to that sort of theological rainbow which the musical language, of which we seek edification and theory, attempts to be."[xvi]
This article about the relation of nonretrogradable rhythms and modes of limited transpositions was repeated twice in his Technique de mon Langage Musical[3], the importance of this relationship is highlighted as Messiaen himself exclaimed “Arrived at this place in our treatise, is it not useful to repeat these lines?”[xvii]
Again it demonstrated that both the time and the sound (the vertical direction and horizontal direction) were equally important in his musical language, and they were to lead the listener progressively to the theological rainbow – an aural sense voluptuous and contemplative refined pleasures. The sentiment takes precedence over all the techniques.
[1] Again, ‘Messiaen’s intangible musical world was actually built up vertically with sound and horizontally with time.
[2] The first mode is transposable twice; the second mode is transposable three times; the third mode is transposable four times; the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh are transposable six times.
Olivier Messiaen, Technique de mon Langage Musical, trans. John Stterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1944), pp. 58-62.
[3] First time at page 21 under the title of ‘Nonretrogradable Rhythms’; second time from page 62 to 63 under the title of ‘Mode of Limited Transpositions’.
[i] Olivier Messiaen, Vingt Leçons d’Harmonie: Dans le style de quelques auteurs importants de “l’Histoire Harmonique’ de la musique depuis Monteverdi jusqu’a Ravle, trans. Felix Aprahamian (Paris: Leduc, c. 1951), Author’s note (English) the second page.
[ii] Robert S. Johnson, Messiaen, (London: J. M. Dent, 1989), p. 13.
[iii] Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1979), p. 25.
[iv] Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1979), pp. 25-26.
[v] K. Marie Stolba, The Development of Western Music: A History, 2nd ed. (Iowa: WCB. Brown, 1994), p. 533.
[vi] Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), p. 140.
[vii] Joseph Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), p. 141.
[viii] Olivier Messiaen, Technique de mon Langage Musical, trans. John Stterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1944), p. 33.
[ix] Robert S. Johnson, Messiaen, (London: J. M. Dent, 1989), p. 19.
[x] Robert S. Johnson, Messiaen, (London: J. M. Dent, 1989), p. 20.
[xi] Robert S. Johnson, Messiaen, (London: J. M. Dent, 1989), p. 20.
[xii] Robert S. Johnson, Messiaen, (London: J. M. Dent, 1989), p. 20.
[xiii] Olivier Messiaen, Technique de mon Langage Musical, trans. John Stterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1944), p. 58.
[xiv] Olivier Messiaen, Technique de mon Langage Musical, trans. John Stterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1944), p. 13.
[xv] Olivier Messiaen, Technique de mon Langage Musical, trans. John Stterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1944), p. 13.
[xvi] Olivier Messiaen, Technique de mon Langage Musical, trans. John Stterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1944), p. 21.
[xvii] Olivier Messiaen, Technique de mon Langage Musical, trans. John Stterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1944), p. 63.
No comments:
Post a Comment