Jos Janssen <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>1.  Having bought recently Kent Nagano's stunning account of
>Messiaen's "Saint Francois d'Assise" (and listening to it instead of
>putting it in my "in-tray" as some do) I am convinced that this is a
>truly masterpiece, summing up all his styles and techniques and
>setting them in a fresh new light.  How do others rate this opera vs
>his total output?

I seem to remember it being seen as a disappointment when it was first
produced, perhaps because it is so static.  My opinion is the same as
yours, that it is a tremendous summing-up work.

>3.  But for a few of his very early works Messiaen was never much tempted
>by classical forms such as sonata or fugue.  Indeed, as Boulez put it:
>"Messiaen doesn't compose, he juxtaposes".  By what ways did Messiaen
>secure "structural integrity" of his works, and how far did he succeede?

Messiaen uses what I call a 'mosiac structure'.  Instead of moving smoothly
from one passage to another, he writes a brief self-contained passage,
then abruptly switches to another one, then comes back, often with literal
repetition.  The work as a whole is then composed of these irreducible
'tiles'.  I think he gets away with it very well, and one of the reasons
that his music is so memorable to me is that there are almost no transition
passages, which usually have difficulty sustaining my interest.

>4.  Messiaen always made a point of perceiving harmony and colour as
>two phenomena originating from the same source, i.e.  E major is a
>vast Bordeaux red.  I must confess that my poor mortal mind doesn't
>quite follow him there.  Is there anybody who can "enlighten" me?

Messiaen had extreme synesthesia - the conflation of colors and tones -
and although he was aware that he was kind of a freak in that regard, he
still insisted on trying to make everyone else see what he was trying to
get across with his music/color schemes.  There's an interesting article
in THE MESSIAEN COMPANION that has (I believe) an exhaustive list of his
correspondences between modes and colors, and he seems to have been fairly
consistent throughout his life.  The author couldn't come up with a
convenient formula for the correspondence, though (e.g., 'sharps are hot,
flats are cool', or 'Eb's imply purple', or 'tritones imply flecks of
gold').

Dan Schmidt -> [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]