New MusiBlog - Messiaen and Color

Location: Blogs New MusiBlog Color and Music
Posted by: brian	10/31/2006 11:23 AM
Earlier this summer I purchased a book containing articles on Olivier Messaien entitled The Messiaen Companion edited by Peter Hill. I recently read the article, "Colour" by Jonathan Bernard. In this article Bernard discussed how Messiaen relates color and music. Color is a very important aspect in Messiaen's music. In his treatise The Technique of My Musical Language Messiaen describes his perception of color in relation to his music. This treatise is also where Messiaen describe in detail the Modes of Limited Transposition. Side note: As I type this entry I am listening to Messiaen's Chronochromie. For Messiaen the color and music relationship does not relate a single tone or key area to a color, like is most-famous predecessor Scriabin. Rather Messiaen relates color to musical modes, more specifically his Modes of Limited Transposition (MLT). Each transposition of these MLT are, for Messiaen, related to different colors. Also, it appears in Table I of Bernard's article that these modes and transpositions can be associated with differing colors dependant on context and in some cases, added tones. Messiaen did not see purely solid colors in these relationships, unlike Scriabin who is noted to have seen solid "blocks" of color. Often, Messiaen would see lines or streaks of varying colors on specific backgrounds. One of the more complex color combinations relates to his Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus, movement V: Regard du Fils sur le Fils. This particular "regard" uses the 6th MLT, 3rd transposition which Messiaen describes as "transparent sulphur yellow with mauve reflections and little patches of Prussian blue and brown purplish-blue." Bernard identifies the color modes of the MLT as modes 2 (3 transpositions), mode 3 (4 transpositions), mode 4 (6 transpositions), and mode 6 (6 transpositions). It is not to say that Messiaen's color is based in the MLTs. In fact some of the "color chords" in Chronochromie, Couleurs de la cité céleste and Sept haïkaï. Paul Griffiths devoted considerable time to this aspect in his book Messiaen and the Music of Time. However, since I have yet to read that section, I will save it for future discussion.

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