Technique of My Musical Language

by Olivier Messiaen

The translation into English of Olivier Messiaen’s The Technique of My Musical Language has been prompted by several factors. M. Messiaen’s growth in the past decade as an international figure in mid-Twentieth-Century music has demanded attention from various artistic quarters. As a contemporary musician of stature, M. Messiaen should find a ready audience for his comments on any aspect of the current musical scene, particularly on those aspects which most affect his own production.

Tolerance and appreciation of any given music are always enhanced by a microcosmic approach to an understanding of the technical procedures involved. In this relatively brief book, the composer has laid out for properly equipped readers a clear outline of certain principles of construction he has employed in composition. Made aware of these principles, the listener brings to the music a more meaningful receptiveness.

The cataloguing and explanation of methods of building tonal structures may strike a creative response in a student or mature composer. The book is one of the growing number of works on contemporary theory and practice which will contribute to the history of music in our century.

(Introduction by Translator, John Statterfield)

Genres: Music

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically he employs a system he called modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from the systems of material generated by his early compositions and improvisations. He wrote music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, vocal music, as well as for solo organ and piano, and also experimented with the use of novel electronic instruments developed in Europe during his lifetime.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Messiaen drills holes in my head and pours the universe in.

pdf for free here:

https://monoskop.org/images/5/50/Mess...

[Alma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beidzot, beidzot, beidzot! :D

[Foley Stocks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Messiaen, being one of the most influential and highly regarded composers of the Twentieth century, stood quite exclusively, taking influence from modernist strands, Expressionism (Serialism), neoclassicism, etc., but rejecting any strict adherence to them—as such, this text offers insight into the mechanisms behind such enigmatic works as his Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps, organ works such as La nativité du Seigneur and Les corps glorieux, or his Turangalîla Symphony.
Speaking especially to theology and so-called 'noble truths', evoking thoughts of the 'Sublime' and similar sentiments, particularly the "enchanted gorgeousness in harmony...those swords of fire, those sudden stars, those flows of blue-orange lavas, those planets of turquoise" (Chapter XIV); he further illustrates musical contradictions, which are themselves precisely the 'charm' (e.g., Nonretrogradable rhythms and Modes of Limited Transpositions).

More broadly, though, it appears that in this work, Messiaen begins (and prospectively completes) some kind of system that operates on an internal logic which appeals to some ‘natural harmony’, or a kind of organic ‘ideal’ to music that progressively manifests in written music and has become realised in his ‘musical language’.
In Chapter VIII, he describes the relationship between the three main musical elements he deals with in the text:

Supremacy to melody! The noblest element of music, may melody be the principal aim of our investigations...rhythm remains pliant and gives precedence to melodic development, the harmony chosen being the "true," that is to say, wanted by the melody and the outcome of it.

Messiaen seems to present his outline of this musical language as a systematic endeavour, with the groundworks of rhythm, explicated first of all, followed by harmony, which is the "noblest element," and thence harmony, as a necessary outcome of melody. We can see the presented logic in the interrelation between these musical elements that are constantly referred back to, e.g., the relation of modes of limited transpositions with nonretrogradable rhythms, the relation of added notes and added values, etc., which arrives by the end at a grander conception of 'musical language', incorporating all of these elements, such as 'Three Modes Superposed' and 'Polymodal Modulation' (Chapter XIX).
Their interconnection is made explicitly clear throughout, particularly with the primary features of the musical language, being the modes of limited transposition and nonretrogradable rhythms, to the degree of arriving at a circularity, where the chapters elaborating on their relationships are in essence mirrored on either side of the text. In Chapter V, he states:

These modes [of limited transposition] realize in the vertical direction (transposition) what nonretrogradable rhythms realize in the horizontal direction (retrogradation)…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.

Messiaen, seemingly holding this systematic view of 'musical language', formally attributes it a sort of "tonal ubiquity in the nontransposition," whereby the now identical beginning and end (within the music but now displayed in his text, too) allows for a unity of movement within the music. This he calls the “theological rainbow” of musical language—while his commentary in this area remain somewhat vague, it would appear (from his explanation and examples posited throughout musical history and in the structure itself) that it relates directly to this kind of unifying, and therefore perhaps divine, quality to the music; and thus his "edification and theory" systematises this in a precisely theological manner.
It should be appreciated the constant musical examples given for almost every single point, which actualise the theory rather than letting it become stagnant as mere concept. That being said, there seems to be a connection with the "mathematical impossibility" and the supposed theological aspect: could this divine unification not be (at least to some degree) shattered by the hyper-specific mathematical prescriptions, or do they necessarily flow from each other? For this theory is not ad hoc (or at least is not presented as such) but outlines the practice that comes from it.
Referring to examples from Bartok, Debussy, and Grieg, he discusses "chromatic formulas" and "melodic contours," as well as an appeal to the way in which "F-sharp is endowed with an attraction toward the C," found in the "natural resonance of a low C." This augmented fourth is presented as a naturally occurring 'good' interval that has therefore organically appeared historically in written music; the same goes for the descending major sixth, for which Mozart is given as an example.
This is why, we could assert, that he directly states at the beginning that this is not about "composition" or "timbre," for these imply too deep a particularity, which take away from the purer elaboration on these principles—from this view, then, any discussion about these applications would be a sort of practical guide with this theory in mind.
Here Messiaen speaks on an extract given as an example for a 'Song-Sentence' (Chapter XI):

In A1, the antecedent of the theme; in A2, the consequent of the theme. In B, the middle period, developing the fragment Y bracketed in the theme; Y is repeated six times upon different degrees - the first time a melodic variant, the second time a rhythmic variant.

In discussing this extract, Messiaen treats the structure logically, deconstructing it and presenting it as distinct parts that fit naturally in the cohesive whole. But this is not so clinical—in a similar fashion to Locke referring to Logic as standing on a natural entity, a "native faculty to perceive the coherence or incoherence of its ideas," so too is the ‘logic’ to this structure presented as an externalisation of some deeper musical current.
For, rather, there seems to be a naturalistic position staked out, evidenced in the melody most definitively: for example the alleluias, psalmodies, and anthems, which present earlier forms of melody as described here; and in Chapter IX he devotes a full section to 'Bird Song,' claiming that "birds make extremely refined jumbles of rhythmic pedals. Their melodic contours, those of merles especially, surpass the human imagination in fantasy." We ought to take from them.
So this is Messiaen's turning point, like a mini-Enlightenment, where the laws governing music, naturally appearing, are realised, 'found-out', (he uses his own language to explain previous examples e.g., the section on Plainchant) and henceforth can be themselves operated on. It is in this way that, speaking about harmony, he can say it is "the true, unique, voluptuously pretty by essence, willed by the melody, issued from it, pre-existent in it, having always been enclosed in it, awaiting manifestation." And it is this notion of a 'natural law' to music that is really 'theological' about the text.

The more cynical reader might see this as a great contrivance: that it devalues the music for it not to be arrived at organically but only through constructing 'rules' based on a subjective analysis of musical history; that if it was truly the next important musical development, it would not come about in this manner. But this feels reductive, for Messiaen's influence has been evident and his position in the general canon is well established. While it most likely cannot stretch beyond being another lens through which music and its analysis can be viewed and taken up—however detailed and compelling it is—it certainly offers an exciting way to approach 'musical language'.

[Cobertizo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Paul Dukas decía: Escuchad a los pájaros: son grandes maestros. Yo confieso que no he esperado este consejo para admirar, analizar y anotar el canto de los pájaros. Los pájaros, con la mezcla de sus cantos, forman una maraña de pedales rítmicos sumamente refinados. Sus contornos melódicos, en particular los de los mirlos, superan en fantasía a la imaginación humana. Teniendo en cuenta que emplean intervalos no temperados inferiores al semitono, como es vano y ridículo imitar servilmente a la naturaleza, daremos algunos ejemplos de melodías de tipo "pájaro", que serían transcripción, transformación, interpretación de los trinos y gorjeos de nuestros pequeños servidores de la inmaterial alegría"

[Anton · Rating 5 out of 5]

”[We ought not] forget the natural harmony: the true, unique, voluptuously pretty by essence, willed by the melody, issued from it, pre-existent in it, having always been enclosed in it, awaiting manifestation.”

”My secret desire of enchanted gorgeousness in harmony has pushed me toward those swords of fire, those sudden stars, those flows of blue-orange lavas, those planets of turquoise, those violet shades, those garnets of long-haired arborescence, those wheelings of sounds and colors in a jumble of rainbows of which I have spoken with love - - it is the sacred instinct of the natural and true harmony which, alone, can so charge itself.”

Loputtoman inspiroiva ja potentialiteetteja avaava tutkielma Messiaenin musiikillisen kielen tekniikasta. Messiaenin musiikki on yhtäaikaisesti Bachin lailla systemaattista sekä suljetuilta järjestelmiltä pakenevaa - juuri tässä rajatilassa on mahdollista tuoda esille jatkuvasti itseään uudistavia harmonian, rytmin ja melodian sommitelmia.

(Ei myöskään ihme että Deleuze otti inspistä Messiaenilta, puhamattakaan esim. Ligetistä tai Rautavaarasta)

[Bruce Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for seeing the theory behind Messiaen's music. Scales of limited transposition are of course well known to jazz musicians but Messiaen's ideas of permutating rhythm are excellent. Listen to the last movement of the Quartet for the End of Time to get an idea how he makes a melody sound improvised when it's written just by changing the rhythm. http://muse-eek.com/?page_id=35&p...

[Bob Woodley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a series of short essays accompanied by short scores on topics such as: Modes of limited transposition, retrograde rhythms, bird songs. He was brimming with ideas, not all practical.

Clear prose that gets right to the point.

FWIW, I see correspondences between Messiaen's ideas and Steve Coleman's explorations as well.

[Sabina M · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10 would recommend this book when you start analysing Messiaen's works. Perfect insight on his techniques and way of thinking.

[Courtney Dantzler · Rating 5 out of 5]

from the man himself - palindromic rhythms, melodic contours derived from folk song, plainchant, and hindu raga, chord clusters, bird song, added notes, modes!

[Toby Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love him!! Beautiful and exuding a lovely humility but a tad boring at points. The stuff on harmony was the best part, and amazing to see the religious impulses behind his work.