Musical Stained-glasses by Olivier Messian
Authors: Zharkikh T.V. 
Published: July 2019

Background. As it is well-known from the statements by O. Messiaen himself in conversations with K. Samuel [10; 7], the French composer had the phenomenon of “colored hearing” associated with the effect of synesthesia. A prerequisite in modern performing art, as in the work of a musicologistresearcher, is the introduction to the worldview of an author-composer. The study of Messiaen’s synesthetic associations helps the interpreter to expand his timbre range in connecting with emotional “immersion” in the essence of the work, and the researcher of his music – to interpret correctly (often – to “decipher”) and convey to the listener the author’s intention. That why consideration of the synesthetic aspect of the works of the French Master appears relevant. The purpose of this study is to reveal some features of the musical-visual ideas of O. Messiaen, the understanding of which is necessary for adequate perception and reproduction of his music. The material of the work is, mainly, the composer’s own statements, on which the generalizations made in the article based, and which the main conductors in the infinite multicolor spiritual world of the French composer are. The studies results. The child impressions, when Olivier together with his parents visited monuments, museums, churches – the Notre-Dame, the SaintChapel, the Chartres Cathedral, the Cathedral in Bourge – became the sources of the sound-color visions of the French genius. Magical colors of the MiddleAges stained glasses left an amazing feeling, an imprint, which did not disappear during his whole life. Stained-glasses as “the light, captured by the human” [7] are the constant awe and the love of O. Messiaen. In childhood, while reading W. Shakespeare, Olivier made stained glass-like scenery using transparent wrappers and packaging materials painted in different colors, then put the decorations to the windows. The sunshine, going through them, was lightening the little boy’s theater like the footlights. Later, the light, as something Divine, will become the main semantic emphasis in the works of the composer. Messiaen puts the color music above the church and religious, the color music, according him, does the same as medieval stained glass: “it brings us blinding admiration .... All sacred art ... should be, first of all, something like a rainbow of sounds and colors” [6]. Like a stained glass window consists of pieces of glass, so music consists of “pieces-cadres”, but, unlike cinematic montage, a stained glass has a mystical nature. From the inside, a stained glass shows one picture of the world, from the outside – another; it is a rosy view of the world and, at the same time, a prism, through which one can see the musical diversity. So, for O. Messiaen, the basis of the foundations is a religion related closely to philosophy; they serve music, and music serves the color music. A musicologist K. Zenkin defines the color music of O. Messiaen as the highest form of sacred music, as “the answer of human to God” [2, p. 171]. Being 11 and having become a student of Paris Conservatory, Olivier for the first time heard the opera by his teacher, Paul Dukas, “Ariadne and Bluebeard”. Messiaen was amazed by the episodes, where the main heroine consistently opens seven doors and finds herself in seven halls, filled with seven different kinds of precious stones; each one was characterized by different tone and timbre. Later, O. Messian continued the searches of his teacher in area of color-sound. About incredible enjoyment by the color the composer says in connection with painter-orphist Robert Delaunay, calling his paintings “colored dreams”. In the pictures of latter, he was most attracted by the principle of simultaneous contrast. The concept of “simultaneous contrast” refers to the phenomenon, in which our eyes, perceiving any color, involuntarily require a different color addition. For example, red requires green, yellow – purple, since these colors are diametrically opposed to each other on the color wheel, etc. If there is no such addition, the eye can simultaneously find (generate) it. As O. Messian had such rare natural quality as synesthesia, while listening to music, in his imagination different colors, corresponding to different sounds, appeared. Borrowing the painting principle of the simultaneous contrast, the composer applied it in his musical works, for example, in chord constructions. Messian’s “colour hearing” was connected not with tones, like to N. Rimsky-Korsakov or A. Skryabin, but with chords. Chords, in understanding of French composer, are the analogues of colors; changing of the chords leads to the changing of the colors and its patterns. The composer is characterized by the “vertical” perception of the sound-color range, but the “chord” factor does not exhaust his color perception, since O. Messiaen operates with the frets, which he calls “systems”. Each system is associated with a specific coloring of sounds. Colors and sounds are arranged for him on the principle of gamma. In the color scheme of O. Messiaen, there is no yellow color, instead of it an orange-golden one is introduced. Especially the composer likes violet or lilac color, belonging to the category of complex, which includes extremely cold blue and extremely warm red. This color has a lot of shades: with the dominance of red-scarlet, with the dominance of blue-hyacinth. In the Middle Ages, in the symbolism of stained glass windows, the first one identified Love to Truth, and the latter – Truth of Love. O. Messian perceived the laws of the universe through the prism of “infinite colors”. For the composer, painting becomes the basis of his artistic method and generates musical images. He felt the colors in the music by the “inner vision”. The subjective vision of sound colors was using by O. Messiaen in the process of creating musical canvases, called, in its turn, to affect the “inner vision” of the listeners.