Darren Wirth

Olivier Messiaen
Vingt Regards Sur l’Enfant-Jesus

Olivier Messiaen once said, “For me, duration is more important than sonority.”1

Messiaen regarded himself a rhythmist and therefore his specialty was rhythmology.

Messiaen is known for his rhythm; he was a pioneer with his anxiété rythmique, or

rhythmical anxiety. For Messiaen, rhythmic music is “music which eschews repetitions,

barlines, and equal divisions, which ultimately takes its inspiration from the movements

of nature, movements which are free and unequal in length.”2 This technique was not

completely new, however. Messiaen’s rhythms provide a link from the medieval era to

the twentieth century, as many medieval musicians introduced the mathematical order of

nature into their music.3

In addition to being innovative with rhythm, Messiaen was also original with his

melodies which he derived from the “modes of limited transposition”: scales of his own

invention. Harmony for Messiaen is decorative rather than functional.4 His harmonies

are static rather than dynamic; they are neither tense nor relaxed. In this way Messiaen’s

music can be characterized by the ideals of Zen or Yoga: “the mood of the moment is

captured and transfixed in a timelessness which is implied by the structure of the music

itself, harmony totally vertical rather than horizontal.”5

Messiaen’s goal was to go one step further than his predecessors Debussy and

Bartók, who successfully synthesized music of the East and West, and synthesize the

1
Bernard Gavoty, “Who Are You, Olivier Messiaen?,” Tempo 58 (Summer 1961): 33.
2
Roger Nichols, Messiaen, (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), 21.
3
Madeleine Hsu, Olivier Messiaen, the Musical Mediator, A Study of the Influence of Liszt, Debussy, and
Bartok, (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1996), 17.
4
Ibid., 71.
5
Robert Sherlaw-Johnson, Messiaen, (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1975), 13.
music of all times and places.6 Messiaen’s world of music is influenced by plainchant

and medieval music, Greek metrics, and Indian (particularly Hindu) rhythms. This paper

will examine these influences as the foundation of Messiaen’s rhythmical language, then

explain some of his favorite techniques using the 1944 piano work Vingt Regards sur

l’enfant Jésus as a model.

Chant, Greek Metrics, Indian Rhythms

Messiaen called chant an “inexhaustible mine of rare and expressive melodic

contours.”7 Messiaen uses chant either in its original form, or he might retain the melody

or contour of the line. Sometimes the intervals of the chant melody will be transformed

to conform to the modes of limited transpositions, or they may be accompanied with

counterpoint or harmony. The following examples show how Messian uses the melody

for the Easter Gradual Haec Dies in the opening of Regard de l’Esprit de joie. Messiaen

made it a point to make explicit reference to any plainchant melody he used. He marks in

the music: theme of dance from the Orient and of the plainsong.8 Notice the similarity in

the contour of the two lines. Messiaen even groups most of the notes the same way.

Ex. 1. Haec Dies Hsu, 83.

Ex. 2. Messiaen. Regard de l’Esprit de joie, mm. 1-4 from Hsu, 83.

6
Hsu, 17.
7
Carla Huston Bell, Olivier Messiaen, (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984), 8.
8
Hsu, 83.

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 The principle of Greek metrics is simple. There are long notes and short notes.

Each long note has the value of two short notes. While westerners conceive rhythm as

the division of the whole note into half, quarter, and eighth notes, the Greek system starts

from the smallest value, called the chronos protos, and combines it in various ways to

make different rhythmic patterns.9

Indian rhythms are similar to those of the Greeks. The small unit is called a

mâtra. The mâtra combines into a group of two or more to create a pattern called a tâla.10

An important Hindu theorist of the thirteenth century, Carngadeva, catalogued one 120

rhythms of the Indian provinces. Messiaen was fascinated by this and used many of these

rhythms in his works. A favorite is number ninety-three (93), called râgavardhana. (Ex.

3). The first part of this rhythm is of particular interest to Messiaen because it is

nonretrogradable. That is, it is the same forwards and backwards. Example 4 shows the

first part of this rhythm in Regard de l’Esprit de joie. Notice the entire example is

nonretrogradable. Nonretrogradable rhythms will be discussed later.

Ex. 3. Messiaen, 1. râgavardhana rhythm.

Ex. 4. Messiaen. Regard de l’Esprit de joie m. 40.

9
Bell, 4.
10
Ibid., 6.

3
 Messiaen’s Rhythm

Messiaen believed, like the Greeks and Indians, that rhythm is not a division of

time, but an accumulation of time durations.11 It grows from a small unit, and is not

divided from a large one. He is the “first Western composer to investigate Indian

rhythmic patterns … and use them in his work.”12 Thus his work is highly ametrical; it

avoids time signatures and regular barlines. Messiaen frequently uses rhythms with

added values. The added value is a “short value, added to any rhythm whatsoever,

whether by a note, or by a rest, or by the dot.”13 It may be difficult in some instances to

differentiate between rhythms with added values and simple rhythms, since rarely is the

simple rhythm heard before the addition of the added value. In the following example

(Ex. 5), from Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus, Messiaen sets up a model of three eighth notes

followed by four eighth notes, so it is easy to see when the four eighth notes get added

values (added values shown by +):

Ex. 5. Messiaen. Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus, mm. 1-6.

11
Sherlaw-Johnson, “Rhythmic Technique and Symbolism in the Music of Olivier Messiaen,” in
Messiaen’s Language of Mystical Love, ed. Siglind Bruhn (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998), 121.
12
Mirjana Simundza, “Messiaen’s Rhythmical Organisation and Classical Indian Theory of Rhythm,”
International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 19, no. 1 (1988): 53.
13
Olivier Messiaen, The Technique of My Musical Language trans. John Satterfield (Paris: Alphonse Leduc,
1944), 16.

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 Augmentation is a practice that has been used since the motets of the Middle

Ages, if not before then. Augmentation describes the practice of increasing note values

of a subject at a certain ratio. Messiaen’s concept of “inexact augmentation” increases

the value of notes at different proportions.14 In Première communion de la Vierge,

Messiaen uses inexact augmentation as shown in the following example. The sixteenth

note is doubled to get an eighth note, and the dotted eighth note is increased by one third

its value to get the quarter note.

Ex. 6. Messiaen. Première communion de la Vierge, mm. 54-55.

Similar to augmentation, diminution decreases the values of rhythms at a certain

ratio. In the opening of Première communion de la Vierge, the Theme of God is

presented in the left hand as four quarter notes followed by a whole note tied to an eighth

note tied to a half note:

Ex. Messiaen. 7 Première communion de la Vierge, mm. 1-2.

14
Messiaen, 18-19.

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 Later in the movement, the rhythm of this theme is diminished inexactly. The first three

chords are repeated and before the long note:

Ex. 8. Messiaen. Première communion de la Vierge, mm. 22-23.

Related to augmentation and diminution, a technique that shows up in Vingt

Regards and later works is the type of rhythm which features progressively increasing or

decreasing values.15 Regard des propètes, des bergers et des Mages opens with a three-

note chord in the left hand, initially sixteen sixteenth notes long (Ex. 9). Each time this

chord is repeated, one sixteenth note is subtracted, creating a “rhythmic diminuendo” or

“controlled accelerando.”16 This process is repeated in retrograde (from one sixteenth

Ex. 9. Messiaen. Regard des
propètes, des bergers etnote
des to sixteen) at the end of the movement. The same rhythmic idea is superimposed on
Mages, mm. 1-18
its retrograde in Regard de l’Onction terrible.17

15
Sherlaw Johnson, 35.
16
Anderson, Shane Dewayne, “Vingt Regards Sur l’Enfant-Jésus by Olivier Messiaen: An Analysis of Its
Content, Spiritual Significance, and Performance Practice,” (D.M.A. diss., University of Texas at Austin,
1999), 88.
17
Sherlaw Johnson, 35.

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 Ex. 9. Messiaen. Regard des
prophètes, des bergers et des
Mages, mm. 1-18

Ex. 10. Messiaen. Regard de l’Onction terrible, mm. 1-8

Ex. 10. Messiaen. Regard de l’Onction terrible, mm. 1-8.

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 Retrogradation is the procedure which “consists of reading from right to left what

normally ought to be read from left to right.”18 In Par Lui tout a été fait, Messiaen

presents a lengthy fugue which is played exactly backwards after a contrasting middle

section. Here Messiaen uses not only retrograde rhythm but pitches, dynamics, and

articulations as well. Example 11 shows the beginning of the fugue and Example 12

shows the end of the fugue, which is the beginning, in retrograde.

Ex. 11. Messiaen. Par Lui tout a été fait, mm. 1-6

Ex. 12. Messiaen. Par Lui tout a été fait, mm. 130-136

18
Messiaen, 20.

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 Nonretrogradable rhythms are a favorite of Messiaen. Unlike retrograde rhythms,

“whether one reads them from right to left or from left to right, the order of their values

remains the same.”19 Nonretrogradable rhythms have some interesting properties, which

Messiaen makes apparent by comparing them to his modes of limited transpositions.

These modes realize in the vertical direction (transposition) what nonretrogradable rhythms realize
in the horizontal direction (retrogradation). In fact, these modes cannot be transposed beyond a
certain number of transpositions without falling again into the same notes, enharmonically
speaking; likewise, these rhythms cannot be read in a retrograde sense without one’s finding again
exactly the same order of values as in the right sense. These modes cannot be transposed because
they are … in the modal atmosphere of several keys at ones and contain in themselves small
transpositions; these rhythms cannot be retrograded because they contain in themselves small
retrogradations … the last note of each group of these modes is always common with the first of
the following group; and the groups of these rhythms frame a central value common to each
group.20

Below is a simple example of a nonretrogradable rhythm in the right hand of a

passage from Regard des prophètes des bergers et des Mages (Ex. 13).
Ex. 13. Messiaen. Regard des prophètes des bergers et des Mages, m. 73

A more complicated example of nonretrogradable rhythm:

Ex. 14. Messiaen. Regard de l’Esprit de joie, m. 34

19
Ibid.
20
Ibid, 21.

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 Messiaen is an important figure in the history of music, not only as a

composer but as a teacher and mentor to his young, avant-garde students. It is interesting

to note the “nonexistence of Messiaen-ism” following his life.21 This nonexistence is due

to several factors. He lectured mainly in aesthetics and analysis of Oriental music, not in

composition. And though he taught his compositional techniques to his private students,

he always encouraged them to find their own way.22

It may be that Messiaen’s compositional world was too personal, unique, and

complicated to be carried on by anyone else. Pierre Boulez, considered by Messiaen to

be his successor, described Messiaen’s music as “reformation eclecticism.”23 That is, he

merged the seemingly unmergable. Messiaen described his own music as theological,

both scientific and divine, and regarded himself primarily a rhythmist. Messiaen

continued the tradition of Debussy and Bartók, but also successfully linked music of the

middle ages, the east, and the west, to his own.

21
Simundza, 72.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.

10
Bell, Carla Huston. Olivier Messiaen. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984.

Gavoty, Bernard. “Who Are You, Olivier Messiaen?” Tempo 58 (Summer, 1961): 33.

Hsu, Madeleine. Olivier Messiaen, the Musical Mediator. A Study of the Influence of
Liszt, Debussy, and Bartok. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1996.

Nichols, Roger. Messiaen. London: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Johnson, Robert Sherlaw. Messiaen. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1975.

Sherlaw-Johnson, Robert. “Rhythmic Technique and Symbolism in the Music of Olivier

Messiaen.” In Messiaen’s Language of Mystical Love. Edited by Siglind Bruhn.
New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998.

Messiaen, Olivier. The Technique of My Musical Language. Translated by

JohnSatterfield. Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1944.

Anderson, Shane Dewayne. “Vingt Regards Sur l’Enfant-Jésus by Olivier Messiaen: An

Analysis of Its Content, Spiritual Significance, and Performance Practice.”
D.M.A. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1999.

Simundza, Mirjana. “Messiaen’s Rhythmical Organisation and Classical Indian Theory of

Rhythm.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 19, no. 1
(1988): 53-74.

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