Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, Part 10

We now turn our attention to the “Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes.” This movement features the quartet playing in unison with tessituras (the range of pitch content) that fall mostly in the staff. The movement uses a binary formal structure. And the double barline at Reh. I indicates the division between the exposition and development sections. 

Elastic Phrases and Additive Rhythms

Elastic phrase duration and rhythmic complexity characterize the opening theme of this movement. Phrases are “elastic” because Messiaen varies the number of rhythmic values in each phrase. These are known as “additive rhythms.” No meter given, so barlines are merely used to mark the end of phrases. Notice how the number of shorter rhythmic values leading up to a quarter note or half note differs from phrase to phrase in the example below.

Example: Theme of Movement VI at Rehearsal A. Brackets indicate rhythmic palindromes.

Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, Part 9

Overview of the fifth movement

The fifth movement is the first of two movements written in the key of E.  Reflecting the concept of eternity in its title, the duration of “Louange à l’Èternité de Jésus” is one of the longest movements in Quatuor resulting in part from a unchanging and very slow tempo. Irregular phrase durations also characterize the movement. This irregularity results from Messiaen’s un-balancing of phrases with the addition or subtraction of a sixteenth note that create rhythmically asymmetrical measures. The fifth movement is therefore dynamic in terms of phrase duration as well as melodic contour and gradual contrasts of expression.  

The Melody of the fifth movement

Messiaen places the cello melody, characterized by lyricism and gradual contrasts of expression, in a high tessitura that never strays below B3.  As with the third and fourth movements, the melody of the fifth movement uses Messiaen’s Mode 2 for pitch content.

The Accompaniment

The piano accompaniment of the fifth movement initially appears to be rather simple:  Three-voice chords, which gain a fourth voice after Reh. D, sustain harmonies by repeating the chords in sixteenth notes.  The accompaniment is dynamic, however, in that it contains a harmonic progression that ascends into a higher register before returning to the register in which it began. 

Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, Part 6

Using Isorhythm to Treat Time

            We discover Messiaen’s unique treatment of time in the homophonic section of the second movement of Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (1941).  The isorhythmic piano accompaniment consists of a repeating series of eight descending chords in sixteenth notes at pianississimo (PPP). Initially four voices comprise these chords.

The repetitious and consistent nature of this isorhythmic accompaniment could be labeled “static” because it creates a clear rhythmic pulse through its rhythmic regularity.  See (link: previous post) for a discussion of static versus dynamic elements.

Cycle, Interrupted

Messiaen uses interruptions of this cycle, however, to confuse the listener’s perception of time (see example below).  Each initiation of the eight descending chords in sixteenth notes functions as a kind of hypermetric beat (!) that creates, in the context of triple simple meter, a sense of hemiola.  By interrupting the cycle at irregular intervals with new harmonic material, thus delaying the next repetition of the eight primary descending chords, Messiaen distorts the regularity of hypermetric beat duration and thereby destroys the perception of a clear hypermeter (which we use, whether consciously or subconsciously, to mark the passing of time). Can you perceive it? Give it a listen and tell me what you think! (Buy an MP3 of the second movement here!)

Maintaining a Clear Rhythmic Pulse

Messiaen maintains unity and a clear rhythmic pulse in the piano, however, by continuing the sixteenth note isorhythm in descending progressions of chords with as many as eight voices (glad I don’t have to play that!).  The B section concludes with the cessation of descending motion and the beginning of sustaining harmonies through the repetition of chords in sixteenth notes. This conclusion foreshadows the piano accompaniment of the fifth movement. 

Excerpt of the eight descending chords in sixteenth notes, indicated by the brackets, which primarily comprise the piano accompaniment beginning at Reh. D of the second movement.  This excerpt is taken from the piano in Movement VII at Reh. C+4, which borrows extensively from the second movement.

To read the next post in this series, click here.

Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, Part 1

Dynamic Instrumentation

In a previous post we looked at the difference between dynamic and static elements in music.  Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (1941), written in eight movements, is dynamic in terms of instrumentation. The first, sixth, and seventh movements are written for the full quartet consisting of violin, clarinet in B-flat, cello, and piano. In contrast, the second movement begins and ends with sections written for the full quartet while containing a middle section written for violin and cello with piano accompaniment. The third movement of Quatuor is written for unaccompanied clarinet while the fifth movement is a cello solo with piano accompaniment and the eighth movement is a violin solo with piano accompaniment. Thus, instrumentation is a dynamic element in that it experiences some variation over the course of Quatuor.

The First Movement - Panisorhythm

An analysis of each movement illuminates the variety of elements within Quatuor that compose a dynamic yet unified whole. The first movement, “Liturgie de cristal,” begins in simple-triple meter. Musicologists have labeled the presence of isorhythm in multiple instruments of this polyphonic movement as “panisorhythm.”1 One example of isorhythm may be found in the piano, a repeating pattern of seventeen rhythmic values shown here: 2

Series of seventeen repeating rhythmic values in the piano part of Movement I

 

To this series of repeating rhythmic values, Messiaen applies a repeating series of twenty-nine chords.

In a similar manner, the cello of the first movement combines isorhythm with a repeating series of five ordered pitches in a high register, taken from a whole-tone scale.3 This process generates new amalgamations (cool big word) of harmonies and rhythmic values over time and therefore constitutes a dynamic element. However, the unchanging, mechanistic nature of this process may be perceived by the listener as a static element. If permitted to continue indefinitely, this process would eventually return to the initial combination of chords and rhythmic values and thus cease to create new material. Therefore, with the cessation of continuing change given sufficient time, this process could be considered a static element. or Mode 1 of Messiaen’s modes of limited transposition.4

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Endnotes

1 Carla Huston Bell, Olivier Messiaen (Boston: Twayne, 1984): 13.
2 Olivier Messiaen, “Prèface,” Quartuor pour la fin du Temps (Paris: Duran, 1942): IV.

3 Allen Forte, “Messiaen’s Chords,” Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature, Christopher Dingle and Nigel Simeone, eds. (Burlington: Ashgate, 2007): 99.
4 Clara Huston Bell, Olivier Messiaen, 75.