Messiaen analyzes Messiaen: author’s comments on the piano cycle «Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus»
Authors: Yakymchuk O.M., Belova N. V. 
Published: July 2019

Background. Most of Messiaen’s works has an author’s comment. The composer usually prefaces his compositions with preambles, epigraphs, analytical notes. There are also two wide theoretical works devoted to explaining the technique of Messiaen’s compositions and grounds of his system: «Technique of my musical language» (1942) and «Treatise Messiaen addresses to a listener, when he commented on the thematic structure of the cycle, providing semantic and figurative orientations for perception. The composer immediately determines the cross-cutting themes that pass through the cycle: the theme of God, the theme of mystical love, the theme of the Star and the Cross, the theme of chords, showing in what plays they sound and how they are transformed. It all looks quite understandable and can really help the listener navigate in music. However, it may seem that Messiaen deliberately disorients the reader of his Notes. For example, the theme of chords, in his definition, is “abstract, it is similar to the series, but very specific and very easily recognizable due to its colors: gray-and-blue, steel, supersaturated red and bright orange, violet-and-lilac, shrouded brown and surrounded by purple-and-crimson” [4: 32]. It is clear that the addressee of such a text is an extraordinary listener of academic concerts, and, it should be admitted, – an extraordinary performer. The same conceptual multidirectionality is also characteristic for the treatise «Technique of My Musical Language» created shortly before the «Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus». In the treatise one does not to look for a good statement on the bases of the musical composition – it is a colorful and mysterious mix of concepts, images, various spheres of human knowledge and arts. Such a complicated explanation of a mixture of different concepts can lead to hopelessness even a musicologist who operates by traditional notions of musical form. How can one understand the form where «development precedes the exposition»? How does the principle of fugue combine with the Indian rhythms? How can be the traditional principles of Gregorian chorus unfolded through the modes of limited transposition? We should admit that if we only read the texts of Messiaеn, we would definitely go to a dead end. However, the problem someway disappears, if you start listening to his music, especially the one that is being discussed. Based on music, not text, one can find that the musical process is entirely explained by the concepts used by Messiaen, although some, undoubtedly, require certain effort to decrypt. Messiaen’s musical (including thematic) material is represented traditionally in complex, where the melodic-harmonic basis is inseparable from its rhythmic realization. As for the musical forms and principles of musical organization, presented in the Messiaen’s works, «Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus» can be considered as the “catalog” of those and others. Some concepts the composer introduced he uses for the first time, some of these he re-thinks in a new way in his system. Thus, the entire musical theory, presented by Messiaen in his “Notes”, may be translated into “a normal” language comprehensible for us. Why would Messiaen complicate the perception of his texts if he wanted to be clear? Indeed, even a musicologist (not to mention a listener or a performer) has to make some effort for expanding his knowledge beyond the scope of musicology in order to understand adequately his comments. It is likely that the Word used by Messiaen is a kind of invitation to co-creation. The programs of his works, according to the definition of musicologist K. Zenkin, preserve “the entire impossibility of translation” of the musical images, returning “music into music that has absorbed all the fullness of color and poetic sensations” [1: 8]. Another explanation for such a strong connection of Messiaen’s music with the Word lies, obviously, in his belonging to the French Church, particularly, to its organ tradition. The desire to interpret and explain is characteristically for the Church tradition. Throughout his life Messiaen was performed the duties of a church organist in the St. Trinity Church in Paris, and he could not fail to be influenced by the Church. Among the most important for the composer ideas and concepts, which appear in the texts of his verbal comments, those that related to Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular are predominant. Conclusions. If we go deep into the question of the religiosity of Messiaen, then it will lead us very far, since religiosity was one of the most important foundations of his outlook in general. Is it a possible to listen to his music without the comments? Of course, the magic of Messiaen’s music will influence onto an audience and without the texts, but the quite substantial component will disappear from it. We can conclude that a person who meets with the music of Messiaen – and it does not a matter, simply he listens to it, performs it or analyzes it with notes – becomes involved in the orbit of the Messiaen’s Universe, where the music embodies the Word in a Divine sense, and where the Word filled with life and meaning of the Music. ornithology» (1949–1992, not finished). Obviously, that the composer tries to present his ideas to the audience. But whom are his words turned to? To the listener, performer, to the musicologist analyzing his compositions? Why is his music not enough, and the composer obviously tries to clothe his ideas in a wordy form yet? Understanding of the composer’s intentions is important and for performing of his music, and for its adequate perception. In addition, a composer’s word in the XX century became usual for us, it is a part of the modern cultural paradigm. The objective of this research is the studying of author’s comments on the piano cycle «Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus» and identification of the meaning of a Word and its communicative purpose for the commented music. The article used the analytical and comparative methods applying to author’s texts of Messiaen («Notes on the piano cycle “Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus”», «Technique of My Musical Language») as well as to the results of the musicological studies related to these texts, with there after generalization of the observations and the opinions. Results of the study. The cycle «Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus» is indicative for Messiaеn’s creativity. «Notes on the piano cycle “Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus”» were written in 1978 and published in the edition “Hommage &#224; Olivier Messiaen” by Paris publishing house “La recherch&#233; artistique”, 1978. In the first edition, the composer presented an epigraph and a brief explanation to each of the twenty plays. But over time, he understood that this was not enough, so he added to the first short comments the more detailed explanations on composition methods (including his own), the construction of musical forms, specificity of imaginative content, the designation of leitmotivs and their transformation.