The Rhythmic Language of Olivier Messiaen
Mary Montgomery Koppel
Contents:
- Introduction
- Greek and Hindu rhythms
- Technique de mon langage musical
- Added values
- Augmentation and diminution
- Nonretrogradable rhythms
- Rhythmic canon and Rhythmic pedal
- Conclusion
Introduction
Rhythm held a unique role in Messiaen's philosophy on music. In his Technique de mon langage musical of 1944, he emphasized rhythmic techniques just as much as his unique modes and his harmonic language. Later in life, however, he focused even more on rhythm. His enormous Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d'ornithologie, published posthumously, is divided into seven volumes, the first three dedicated exclusively to time, rhythm, and rhythmic analysis. This treatise was in fact originally intended only to discuss rhythm; the later volumes included several analyses of Messiaen's own work and a discussion of his modes and color. This discussion is contained in a single, shorter volume of the Traité. Manipulations of pitch, therefore, seem to have become secondary in Messiaen's mind. His own words reinforce this observation:
“I consider that rhythm is the primordial and perhaps essential part of music: I think it probably existed before melody and harmony, and in fact I've a secret preference for this element.” (Interview with Claude Samuel, 1967)
“For the musician and the rhythmician, the perception of time is the source of all music and all rhythm.” (Traité, t.1)
“The perpetual discussions between proponents of tonal music and those of dodecaphonic music always revolve around the phenomena of sonorities ... I am sure that the majority of musicians opening this book will first search for the combinations of sounds, the aggregations more or less dissonant, perhaps the simple sequences of chords ... Let us not forget that music is first and foremost Melody, and that melody would not exist without Rhythm! Sound [pitch] is only one means of transmitting the different heights of the melody.” (Traité, t.1)
Messiaen reinforces the idea that rhythm is the source of all music by quoting historical figures from Plato to Confucius. His philosophy of time and rhythm ranges from the metaphysical to the spiritual, from the natural world to the man-made. He discusses time of the mountains and time of the cosmos, rhythm as a human creation and timelessness as a sacred eternity. Much of his rhythmic technique focuses on the disruption of the beat, leading towards an absence of pulse, or timelessness. Spiritually, this was one of his means of communicating with the divine.
Greek and Hindu rhythms
Central to Messiaen’s rhythmic language is an appreciation and appropriation of rhythms of ancient cultures. Messiaen became familiar with plainchant melodies and with Greek meter during his time at the Conservatoire, specifically through his studies with Maurice Emmanuel. Greek meter in particular, with its patterns of long and short syllables, built from the smaller durational value outward, was of interest to the young composer.
Later in his studies, Messiaen stumbled across a treatise by a 13th-century Indian musician named Sarngadeva. This treatise included a list of 120 rhythms called desi-tâlas. The word tâla, literally translated as “clap,” in music refers to a rhythmic pattern on which a piece of music is based; desi-, translated as “of the country,” refers to the regional origins of each rhythm. These rhythms were tremendously appealing to Messiaen. Many of the desi-tâlas are ametric; rather than being organized around a central pulse or beat, they are formed around a smaller note value and its multiplications or accumulations. As with Greek meter, the rhythms are formed from the smaller durational value outward, rather than the traditional Western musical hierarchy of meter, pulse, and rhythm.
In his Traité de rythme, Messiaen discusses at length Greek meter and Hindu rhythm. This is not because he utilized their authentic cultural or musical practices to develop rhythm, but because his own rhythmic language was very much inspired by these rhythms. While he adored using desi-tâlas or Greek metric patterns as musical material, he manipulated these rhythms using his own highly systematic technique.
Technique de mon langage musical
In 1944 Messiaen published his Technique de mon langage musical. Illustrated with examples from his own music, this book outlines the basic system behind Messiaen’s musical composition. The first half outlines his rhythmic technique.
The book was written relatively early in his life and career: he didn’t retire from teaching until thirty-four years later, and kept composing until he died in 1992, nearly fifty years after its publication. In his interview with Claude Samuel in 1967, Messiaen discusses the Technique:
“It’s now out of date; much of its content is still valid, but it's nearly thirty years since I wrote it ... I'm actually preparing a new work, much more complete than the first, which will be entirely devoted to rhythm and will be entitled Traité de rythme.”
He refers, of course, to his Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie, completed by Yvonne Loriod and published posthumously.
Despite the fact that the Technique was written so early in Messiaen’s career, it is still a valid resource in studying any of his music. The methods and systems laid out in this early book did not disappear in his later work; they were simply elaborated, developed, layered, and made decidedly more complex — but much of his work was still based in this original technique. Indeed, his Traité discusses precisely the same methods, though in much greater detail, and with examples from his later works.
The primary rhythmic methods outlined in both the Technique and the Traité are:
- Added values
- Augmentation and diminution
- Nonretrogradable rhythms
- Rhythmic canons
- Rhythmic pedals
Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps illustrate Messiaen's rhythmic technique very clearly. The composer draws many examples from this piece throughout the Technique de mon langage musical. In the Préface of the quartet, he wrote:
“Its musical language is essentially immaterial, spiritual, and Catholic. Modes which achieve a kind of tonal ubiquity, melodically and harmonically, here draw the listener towards eternity in space or the infinite. Special rhythms, beyond meter, contribute powerfully in dismissing the temporal.”
He seems to have intended a play on words: the “end of time” to which the title refers implies a drive to alter the listener’s perception of time, “dismissing the temporal,” as he says. Indeed his rhythmic methods do disrupt a sense of beat or meter, Western means of organizing time.
In terms of rhythmic composition, one movement in particular provides textbook illustrations of his methods: the sixth movement, titled Danse de la fureur pour les sept trompettes. In the Préface of the quartet, Messiaen describes this movement as “rhythmically the most characteristic piece of the set” and identifies “the use of added values, augmented or diminished rhythms, and nonretrogradable rhythms” as his primary means of rhythmic development.
Added value
The first rhythmic practice presented in the Technique is that of the valeur ajoutée, or the added value. An added value is a short durational value, often of a 16th-note’s length, added to any rhythm whatsoever, by a note, a rest or a dot. This disrupts what could have been a square, metrical rhythm.
The clearest example of added values is the opening of the Dance of wrath movement of the quartet. In his book, Messiaen places a cross at each example of an added value: in this example, added values come in the form of 16th-notes or the addition of a dot to an 8th-note. One interesting observation: if we look specifically at the first six measures of the movement, we find that removing these added values leaves us with measures that can be cleanly divided into quarter-notes — indeed, many could be written in 4/4 time. But the added values throw off the sense of beat or of regular meter:
Augmentation and diminution
The next technique discussed in Messiaen’s writings is the augmentation or diminution of a rhythm. This can be done simply, by twos or fours or other square numbers; this is not uncommon at all in Western music. Messiaen suggests augmenting or diminishing a rhythm by the addition or withdrawal of a dot — he calls this “much more interesting” in his book. Other methods could include the multiplication of each durational value by three, four, or five to augment the rhythm, or by fractions to diminish the rhythm. One could also simply add or subtract a short value (sixteenth note) to each duration. Messiaen exploited this extremely simple concept at length throughout his life.
Nonretrogradable rhythms
Central to Messiaen’s rhythmic language is his preference of palindromic rhythms; that is, a rhythm which is perfectly symmetrical, and is the same read forwards or backwards. He calls these rhythms “nonretrogradable,” and describes them as “divisible in two groups, one of which is the retrograde of the other, with a central common value.”
In the second main section of the Dance of wrath, Messiaen utilizes one nonretrogradable rhythm per measure: each has a central value around which the rhythm is perfectly symmetrical. Also, the dhenki rhythm shown in the table of augmentations and diminutions is a short nonretrogradable rhythm. Several of the 120 desi-tâlas are nonretrogradable, or contain segments which are nonretrogradable, and Messiaen prefers to utilize these over others as his basic rhythmic material.
Rhythmic canon and rhythmic pedal
Another technique described in Messiaen’s writings is the “rhythmic canon.” Since the movement Dance of wrath is written entirely in unison or octaves, a rhythmic canon cannot be illustrated therein. However, Messiaen utilized the same sequence of nonretrogradable rhythms discussed in the previous section when he wrote Visions de l'Amen two years after the quartet. In the movement entitled “Amen des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux...” he takes the sequence of rhythms and layers them in canon. The rhythmic canon does not accompany a canon of pitches, but an interesting rhythmic polyphony is formed. Messiaen utilizes rhythmic canon not just by layering identical rhythms, but also by employing their augmentations or diminutions.
An additional technique of rhythmic layering is the use of a “rhythmic pedal”: this is a rhythm that repeats itself in ostinato. It could be unrelated to the music it accompanies, or could be interwoven with the texture.
Conclusion
The basic techniques of added values, augmentation and diminution, nonretrogradable rhythms, and rhythmic canons were developed quite early in Messiaen’s long career. He did, however, maintain use of this language throughout later works. His most complex rhythmic constructions were developed after the writing of the Technique, but they were generally developed out of the same principles. Other elements influenced his later music and rhythm as well: he went through a quasi-serialist period, (and is sometimes credited with being the first composer to serialize all elements of music, including durations.) He was also, most famously, devoted to the study of birdsong, travelling the world to transcribe birds in nature, and incorporating these figures in his music.
Nonetheless, he did not abandon his original preferences: ancient Indian and Greek rhythms, ametrical material, added values and nonretrogradable rhythms. They were always an integral part of his musical language, even as it developed and became more complex. Even in his last major work, Eclairs sur l’Au-delà..., one finds clear examples of nonretrogradable rhythms, added values, all clear-cut techniques that he had laid out nearly 50 years before. More commonly in his later music, however, a complex polyphony developed as he superimposed these rhythmic techniques on top of one another. At the root of all this, however, was a consistent rhythmic language formed using principles formed early in Messiaen's life.