On first listen of this nature piece, I was struck by how dissonant the piece was, especially the first movement. Personally, I am not a fan of really crude and sustained dissonances. I would prefer dissonances with consonances in the middle. I did listen to this work though because I found it interesting the types of rhythms he uses, especially in the first moment to accurately notating the rhythms of the bird calls. That is extremely difficult to do. Upon looking at the snippet of the score that's in the book, the hive of musical sound activity is so great.
From the painstakingly accurate rhythms to the swooping harmonics of the differing of the bird calls and the striking piano chords the announce nature's turn really is interesting. The rhythms of the birds vary. Some are on the beat. Some of them are off-rhythm, creating this symbolism of the nature of the birds Another "bird" could be symbolized by the clarinet starting on the B-flat, and trilling to a B. The beginning piano chords are silently chromatically plaining It's color in a way I haven't heard it before. I can sense the synesthetic vibes that Messiaen gets because I saw the same colors when I listened to the music.
In the second movement, I hear tons of unresolved fortissimo dissonance surrounded by the C-sharp with the clarinet zipping in and out in a precise rhythm, although it almost sounds like the clarinet is going about freely in between the piano texture. This is followed by a high atonal melody in the strings going slowly up and down with the plaining piano clusters. Much of the string melody in this section is in augmented seconds and thirds and fourths. These intervals create the majority of melodies throughout the piece.
In the third movement, I believe this is the movement with the solo clarinet just playing an atonal melody. This movement actually has a lot of feeling in it for being a single instrument playing basically a solo.
I really love the dark melodies, (E, F, B, E, F, G. . . for example) along with the long stretched out notes. I also like his huge dynamic contrasts between pianissimo to triple forte. At the height of the build up, the clarinet not only has a very poignant and reedy sound, it also rings with vibrato. When the notes are first coming up from pianissimo, it sounds to me like when you get minor tennitis or gradually building feedback from an amplifier. It's just a very pointed sound and I really like it. It has some "pain" in it as if the end of time is approaching somewhat of a somber phase.
The fourth movement is kind of an allegro that has punch and a lot of activity swarming around it. Many different techniques are used within the short minute or so movement. From striking chromatic rows in an accented fashion to string pizzicato, to string slides, it is full of variety. In this movement we also have syncopation that is characteristic of Stravinsky or even some of Gershwin. The vivaciousness of this movement sounds if the wildlife are still preparing for the eternity of time to end. The birds are still flying around. The piano is evermore lively with the rows he was using.
In the fifth movement, my ears are greeted by the melancholy sound of the violin playing it's melody of the end of eternity, as if life has now seized and Jesus has taken over, as in revelation. It is a great contrast to the earlier, faster movements that were filled with vigor and excitement and fright for the end of time. This movement has the appeal of many of the Romantic works we listened to earlier in the quarter, while still maintaining the slight and careful atonal quality. They way Messiaen accomplishes this feat is by having his melodies in fourths and seconds. The harmony in certain places seems like it is somewhat Middle Eastern in a rather defecated way. For example the section right before the middle of the movement showcases some intervals that remind me of the raised seven or other intervals you get in Middle Eastern music and traditional scales.
The sixth movement, the piano, strings, and the clarinets does this interesting syncopated rhythm with the melody: F#, E, B-flat, C, F#, E, B-flat, C. It creates this really interesting layered sound as if it were only one instrument playing the piece. After a while of repeating this, the tempo picks us drastically and the chromaticism flies all over the place. This quiets down to the clarinet's level where they have a melody that starts out spelling out a D major chord, D, A, F-sharp. After this section, the texture scurries again and then suddenly stops to play repetitiously the notes F, C#, A, F, C#, A, each time varying the rhythm at which the performer plays it. That motive is played in a particularly free style. Then, the texture flies around in a panicked matter to add excitement to the texture. At the end of the movement, he ends with the piano and strings doing a big tremolo on G that grows in dynamic level over each of the three or four measures it is written.
The seventh movement rhythmically reminds me of Stravinsky and his syncopated rhythms. This texture thins out to embrace the violin yet again playing the atonal melody in a haunting fashion with mild piano accompaniment. Then the heavy rhythms, similar to the beginning of the piece come back followed by minor piano flourishes in an E-flat tonality and some advanced violin technique of running the bow across the frog or other part of the instrument that would not emit a pitch. This is followed by a series of repeated plaining piano clusters in varying dynamic and range levels of the piano (from lower to high). These repeating piano clusters are met with winding, downward string glissandos and slides and other rhythms free-floating around the piano texture. The clarinet and strings do a nice job of decorating and coloring in the space between the piano clusters. I hear a lot of eighth, sixteenth and even thirty-second note figures for extra clarity. After another striking of the rhythmic materials at the beginning of the piece and another collage of chromatic string and piano playing, the wild texture, swarming with activity slows to almost a stand still then picks up in tempo ending in a stomping dissonance in the lower end of the piano.
The eighth movement is another one of those grand, slow movements that is so beautiful. It shares a similar thing to the fifth movement (the first slow movement of the piece) by taking tones of a varying nature and following them up with close and not-so-close intervals (primarily seconds and fourths). I really love what Messiaen does in this movement of taking the violin up into its highest register. This is an extremely Romantic gesture. The repeated intervals and the intervalic qualities of the augmented 4th and second, are perhaps more stunning, culminating in a kind of apotheosis up to the open harmonic of E with a pianissimo E chord in the piano.
I also noticed that in many of the slower movements of the piece he repeats intervals back to back. For example, later on in the seventh and eighth movement there is pattern that repeats C- E-flat, C, E-flat. It's really great in the slow movements, how Messiaen lets the violin lead the way. The piano is just sparse accompaniment and nothing more. In many of the movements, the atonal nature would suggest minor ambiguity, but while the accompaniment parts would be in one key, the strings would be in another playing major thirds, minor thirds, fourths, and other consonant harmonies. I could really tell that Messiaen is writing music of pure color.
I wonder if consonant music is not meant for those who see pure color? I wonder if every composer with synesthesia composes with a certain level of dissonance or if composing in search of color has nothing to do with the harmonies used in consonance? The reason I ask these questions is because we have two composers so far in this class who have used their synesthesia to create atonal or nearly atonal soundscapes. It strikes me, "What draws these composers to conjure up dissonant colors?" It's just really interesting that both synesthesia-driven composers have composed with dissonance rather than consonance.
That is not to say that Messiaen didn't occasionally hit a few consonant chords in his string of almost completely dissonant harmonies. In movements five, seven and eight I can hear where Messiaen's ear would lead him to connect intervals from dissonance to consonant seventh or ninth chords. This is proof that a composer cannot be completely dissonant if they use their ear to lead them to different harmonies and therefore variety. When I listen to Schoenberg, I don’t get variety, I get the same dissonance with no direction. With Messiaen, I get dissonance with a bit of the Romantic ear, which is the perfect pairing of consonance and dissonance for me.
