Messiaen's Synaesthesia: The Correspondence between Color ... · Messiaen has not learned these color correspondences, and he has not in- vented them as if to cover all the colors

Music Perception Fall 1986, Vol. 4, No. 1,41-68

©1986 BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Messiaen's Synaesthesia: The Correspondence between Color and Sound

Structure in His Music

JONATHAN W. BERNARD Yale University

Olivier Messiaen's published descriptions of his works and the color labels that appear in certain of his scores show that he is affected by colored-hearing synaesthesia. Because Messiaen's color responses, like those of other synaesthetes, exhibit a high degree of internal consistency, the analyst may tabulate the available correlations between sound and color and use them to explore the various factors, objectively considered, that govern Messiaen's color associations. The importance of absolute pitch and of the modes of limited transposition is studied, as are the conditions under which vertical spacing and pitch-class-set identity may assume primary significance in color delineation. The conclusions reached offer a key to more general matters of structure in Messiaen's music. Examples are drawn from several of Messiaen's works, dating from 1929 to 1974.

Introduction

In Olivier Messiaen's The Technique of My Musical Language (1944, Vol. 1, p. 5 1) there occurs a passing reference to "the gentle cascade of blue-

orange chords" in the piano part of the second movement of his Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1941). This, apparently, was Messiaen's first public acknowledgment of the role that color plays in his compositional process; its importance to that process, however, was not widely known until some

years later. In a conversation that took place in the mid-1960s, Messiaen stated:

I am ... affected by a kind of synopsia, found more in my mind than in my body, which allows me, when I hear music, and equally when I read it, to see inwardly, in the mind's eye, colors which move with the music, and I sense these colors in an extremely vivid manner. . . . For me certain complexes of sound and certain sonorities are linked to complexes

Requests for reprints may be sent to Jonathan W. Bernard, Department of Music, P.O. Box 4030 Yale Station, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

41

42 Jonathan W. Bernard

of color, and I use them in full knowledge of this. (Samuel, 1976, pp. 16-17)1

By this time, Messiaen had written the Sept Haikai (1962) and Couleurs de la cité céleste (1963), scores in which precise correspondences between colors and sonorities (in all cases chords) are indicated. Other sources, such as Johnson (1975), Samuel (1976), and Messiaen (1979), show that similar correspondences - some equally precise, others of a more general nature - exist in many of his works, including (besides those mentioned) the Huit Préludes (1929), the Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant- Jésus (1944), the Cata- logue d'oiseaux (1958), Chronochromie (1960), and Des canyons aux étoiles (1974), among others.

"Synaesthesia" is a general term, embracing all sorts of sensory cross- overs in which stimuli applied to one of the five senses produce responses in another sense or senses as well. Those so strangely affected - apparently a very small minority of the general population - are known as synaesthetes. The phenomenon of color hearing, a specific variety of synaesthesia, has been recognized at least since the eighteenth century and has been the subject of scientific investigation - occasionally quite intense investigation - since the latter half of the nineteenth century. Even so, very little is yet known about it, but perhaps this is not surprising, since one finding that has emerged from all the research done on color hearing is that it is a distinctly individualized phenomenon, with no very specific correlation between its manifestation in one synaesthete and that in another. And, it would appear, the more particularized and definite the reported responses of an individual, the greater the disparity with those of others. This is certainly true of synaesthetes who happen to be accomplished composers of music. The color associations of Scriabin and of Rimsky-Korsakov with the various keys of tonal music, for instance, are well documented. From the nearly complete divergence of the two schemes, we can only conclude that the one or two points of agreement are nothing more than coincidences.2

Marks (1978) has noted that the amount of activity in colored-hearing research, as measured by the number of publications it has generated, has actually decreased substantially over the past few decades. This has hap- pened, one may gather, largely because researchers have become discour-

1. By "a kind of synopsia" Messiaen means colored-hearing synaesthesia. Synopsia, known to Messiaen from his acquaintance with the painter Blanc-Gatti, who was afflicted with it, is a disorder which causes confusion as to the actual stimulus provoking sensory response. Thus, for example, Messiaen can tell the difference between color sensations pro- voked by visible wavelengths of light and color sensations arising from aural stimuli, whereas a victim of synopsia often cannot.

2. See Peacock (1985) for a comparative table (p. 494) and for an interesting discussion of Scriabin's synaesthetic responses. A slightly different table appears in The New Oxford Companion to Music, s.v. "Color and Music," p. 426.

Messiaen's Synaesthesia 43

aged by the persistent failure of the accumulated data to lead to any signi- ficantly universal conclusions. Marks himself is not discouraged, but his criteria for correlation between individuals are extremely general, having to do mainly with relative brightness and loudness and not with specific, definite colors. Furthermore, as Marks's own research has shown, many non-synaesthetes exhibit the same kind of responses, measured on these very broad kinds of scales, as do synaesthetes. In short, the attempts of psy- chologists and others to investigate color hearing as a function of the nature of the human mind in general may not have much to tell us if we are more interested in the output, as it were, of particular synaesthetic individuals.

But why should we be interested in Messiaen's synaesthetic responses? After all, it is hardly likely that anyone else will ever be able to see the colors that Messiaen does, even if that person were himself or herself synaesthetic. What can this private, interior light show possibly have to do with the way that Messiaen's listeners hear his music? One of Messiaen's biographers has concluded that "the whole question of color association, of course, is a highly personal affair" (Johnson, 1975, p. 167). Indeed, short of a major breakthrough in synaesthetic research, it would be impossible to discover the reasons for the identification of particular sonorities as "blue" or "russet," and so forth. But to say this does not deny the possibility that we could still discover what the colors mean, for the musical phenomena to which they are tied are accessible to us. One encouraging fact even at the outset of this investigation is that Messiaen's color responses are not whimsical or arbitrarily in flux. Quite the contrary: they are firmly fixed.3 It is also encouraging that his responses are induced, as he says, "equally" when he reads music, for this suggests that the relevant sonic characteristics are not dependent upon the particular attributes of individual performances, so no- toriously difficult to predict and quantify. If Messiaen's color responses are consistent, then we should be able, without seeing the colors directly, to identify the similarities between the sonorities which for Messiaen correspond to the same color or color complex - and furthermore, of course, to pinpoint the features of these sonorities that differentiate them from those corresponding to other colors. An objective basis for such similarity and contrast would certainly be consonant with what is already known of Mes- siaen's compositional methods and theoretical predilections. Those famil- iar with the Technique will recall the precision and detail with which the author and composer has enumerated the various features of his music. Re-

gardless of whether the simple identification of these features in a particular work would constitute a truly penetrating analysis, their existence stands,

3. "Any given synaesthetic individual typically finds the visual expressions of music to be

regular, consistent, and reliable." (Marks, 1978, p. 92).


at the very least, as an indication that Messiaen works with readily classifia- ble categories of sounds.

When dealing with Messiaen's color names for sounds it is necessary to keep in mind that no external logic has operated to construct the system. Messiaen has not learned these color correspondences, and he has not in- vented them as if to cover all the colors he desires to evoke in as efficient a manner as possible. His synaesthesia, like the true form of the phenomenon in any affected individual, is involuntary, the pairings of colors with sounds out of his control. What Messiaen has managed to do, however, is to find the particular sound combinations that will give rise to an extremely wide and variegated range of color responses, an accomplishment which affords him the ability to paint, as it were, in sound what is visible. It is difficult to know for sure whether this reverse aspect of Messiaen's synaesthesia - that is, visible transmuted into audible rather than the other way around - is also involuntary or simply a well-oiled habit, but the fact is that he can do it, with significant impact upon his creative output.4 Describing the fifth piece of his Sept Haikai, for example, Messiaen mentions "all the mingled colors" of a particular Japanese landscape: "the green of the Japanese pines, the white and gold of the Shinto temple, the blue of the sea, and the red of the Torii [a kind of porch] . . . That's what I wanted to translate almost literally into my music" (Samuel, 1976, p. 93).

Messiaen's color labels - sometimes applied to individual chords, sometimes to groups of sonorities - are of three basic types. The first type is monochromatic: simply "green" or "red," for example. The second type is also of uniform hue, but more complex than the first: two colors are mixed as one might find them blurring into one another at the edges of the bands of a rainbow. These are given hyphenated names, such as "blue-orange" or "grey-rose." The third type includes combinations of varying complexity, ranging from simple pairs of colors ("grey and gold") or triplets ("orange, gold, and milky white"), which conceivably are produced in turn by successive chords; to parallel or vertical bands of three colors simultaneously, of apparently more or less equal strength; to effects involving a dominant color flecked, striped, studded, or hemmed with one or more others. Some of these last varieties are quite elaborate: for instance, "transparent sulphur yellow with mauve reflections and little patches of Prussian blue and brown purplish-blue."

The existing evidence of correspondence between colors and sounds (in almost all cases chords) comes to us in three forms: (1) references made in interviews, notably those of Samuel (1976) and Goléa (1960); (2) prefatory notes to published scores, and other notes by Messiaen about his works; (3)

4. As Marks (1978, p. 92) has pointed out, "Synaesthesia usually operates in one direction, not both."

Messiaen* s Synaesthesia 45

labels affixed to specific sonorities in the scores themselves. In aggregate, this is a considerable amount of information, but in turn it is dwarfed by the vast stretches of Messiaen's music for which there is no color data whatso- ever. For Messiaen, this greater part of his music is probably not devoid of color but is simply not composed with color in mind as the principal deter- minant of structure. The relatively small portion of his work for which color is principal is still sizeable but of manageable proportions for detailed study.

The most consistent and reliable access to color correspondences in Mes- siaen is provided by his well-known modes of limited transposition, so called because of their symmetrical properties, which produce a complete replication of content if the mode is transposed beyond a certain level. As Messiaen has himself attested, the modes of limited transposition were among the first elements of his harmonic language to develop; by 1930, his twenty-second year, he had already been using his modal system for some time and had become quite experienced with it "from improvising according to the modes in organ class" (Goléa, 1960, p. 29).5 In the Technique, Messiaen first reveals his preoccupation with these modes and details the content of each. He defines seven modes in all, the first of which - the whole-tone scale - he discards for his purposes. Color is not discussed in the Technique, except in passing, but on the basis of later remarks, including analytical notes to earlier works, it would appear that of the six modes that Messiaen does use, only four (Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 6) have color associations. Table 1 presents these four modes in pitch-class number notation,

Table 1 The Color Modes

Mode 2 Mode 3

0134679 10 0234678 10 11 124578 10 11 1345789 11 0 235679 11 0 245689 10 01

3 5 6 7 9 10 11 1 2

Mode 4 Mode 6

0125678 11 024568 10 11 12367890 135679 11 0 234789 10 1 24678 10 01 34589 10 11 2 35789 11 12 4569 10 11 03 4689 10 023 5 6 7 10 11 0 1 4 5 7 9 10 11 1 3 4

5. ". . . mon système modal, dont j'avais acquis un pratique extrêmement rapide en im-

provisant selon mes modes à la classe d'orgue."


together with all of their available transpositions. Mode 2, set 8-28 in Forte's numbering, is the same as the octatonic scale; Mode 3 (set 9-12) is the complement of the augmented triad.

We can learn something about the common character of the "color modes," as I will refer to them henceforth, and something about the basis for their distinction from one another, by considering why Modes 5 and 7 have no color associations. Mode 5 (0,1,5,6,7,11), set 6-7, is a subset of both Mode 4 and Mode 6, and thus is apparently redundant.6 Mode 7 (0,1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,11), on the other hand, is a 10-note set (10-6) and a superset of all of Messiaen's other modes except Mode 3. We note here that Messiaen often refers to total chromaticism - ironically enough, considering the etymology of the word - as grey or grey-black. Possibly Mode 7 has too many notes to evoke vivid colors; or perhaps it has an effect akin to that of Messiaen's vitrail, or stained-glass window chords, in which all hues of the rainbow are present at once, in sharp delineation from one another. At any rate, none of the color modes is a subset or superset of any of its fellows.

Methodology From what has been said concerning the pc-set identities of the color modes, and the fact

that their distinctive qualities stem in part from the lack of inclusion relations among them, it should be clear that pc sets in general are of some utility in assessing the modal identities of sonorities, particularly in cases where the complete contents of a mode are not present or where other ambiguities intrude. The models of chord progression for each mode in the Technique, for example, could be studied and the sets found therein designated as "typical" sonorities of a particular mode. However, there are certain inherent limits upon both the scope and the precision of the information provided by pc-set identity. The first problem is that the color modes have numerous subsets in common. Set 4-Z29, for example, turns up as a typical sonority in both Mode 2 and Mode 4 and is actually a constituent of all four color modes; 5-34 is typical of both Mode 3 and Mode 6; and so on. The second problem is that, for Messiaen, color identities are tied, not only to the different modes, but also to different transpositions of the same mode. Since pc-set identities do not change upon transposition, they cannot automatically tell us everything we need to know about what the color affinities of given sonorities might be.

Although I have not yet succeeded in tracking down all instances of modally based coloration in Messiaen's music (that is, all instances verified by Messiaen himself), most of them occur quite straightforwardly in their respective contexts and present, initially at least, no analytic problems. In Table 2 is arranged the information thus gathered, according to mode and transposition, with location in Messiaen's work identified in each case. (The number in parentheses is the transposition; "2(3)," for example, means Mode 2, third transposition.) Although in general we can speak of a dominant color or related colors within a particular mode, note, first, that secondary colors are often quite diverse (although they tend to be well coordinated within individual transpositions) and, second, that there are some transpositions in which the dominant color of the mode is overthrown entirely. In Mode 2, for instance, violet and blue violet prevail, but 2(3) is green; and although orange and gold are characteristic of Mode 3, 3(3) nevertheless is usually blue or blue and green.

6. Messiaen actually calls Mode 5 a "truncated Mode 4" {Technique, Vol. 1, p. 62) but makes no mention of its relationship to Mode 6.


Table 2 Modally Based Coloration in Messiaen's Compositions

Mode Composition, Movement Color(s)

2(1) Préludes, V Violet-purple Vingt Regards, V Blue-violet Catalogue, VII Rose and mauve Catalogue, VII Red and violet Couleurs (R75) Blue-violet

2(2) Préludes, I Violet Vingt Regards, V Blue-violet Vingt Regards, XIII Gold and brown Vingt Regards, XVII Gold and brown Vingt Regards, XVII Rose and mauve

2(3) Canyons, IV Green

3(1) Vingt Regards, XIII Orange, gold, milky white Catalogue, VII Orange Couleurs (after R75) Orange, gold, milky white Canyons, VII Orange and gold Canyons, VII Orange, gold, milky white

3(2) Préludes, I Orange Vingt Regards, XIII Grey and mauve Canyons, IV Grey and gold Canyons, XII Grey and gold

3(3) Préludes, V Blue-orange Préludes, VIII Blue-orange Vingt Regards, XVII Blue and green Catalogue, IX Blue-green Canyons, VIII Blue Canyons, XII Blue and green

3(4) Préludes, VIII Green-orange Vingt Regards, XIII Orange, red, with a bit of blue Canyons, VII Orange striped with red

4(3) Canyons, IV Yellow and violet

4(4) Vingt Regards, V Deep violet; white with violet design; purple violet Vingt Regards, XVII Violet veined with white

4(5) Catalogue, VII Mauve Catalogue, VII Violet; deep violet Couleurs (R76) Violet Canyons, IV Violet

4(6) Vingt Regards, VÌI Carmine red reflections; purplish blue; grey-mauve; grey-rose

Canyons, VII Carmine red; purplish blue; mauve; grey-rose

6(1) Catalogue, VII Golden

6(2) Canyons, IV Brown, russet, orange, violet Canyons, VII Brown, russet, orange, violet

6(3) Vingt Regards, V Transparent sulphur yellow with mauve reflections and little patches of Prussian blue and brown purplish-blue

6(4) Vingt Regards, VII Vertical bands: yellow, violet, black


The importance of absolute pitch level in determining color is well demonstrated by the eighth and last of Messiaen's early Préludes (Figure 1). According to Messiaen, the second theme of this prelude is "blue-orange in its first presentation, green-orange in its second presentation" (Messiaen, 1979, p. 22). The side-by-side comparison afforded by Figure 1 shows the exact parallel between the incipits of the two passages, an exactitude which persists throughout the two renditions of the theme. In effect, these two passages are in different keys: the first in a kind of A, the second a kind of D. The term "key" is used rather loosely here, of course; it signifies not much more than a tonic note, a central triad built upon that note (which also supplies a diatonic dominant), and the availability of the major sixth above the tonic. The fact that key identity makes more than occasional appearances in Messiaen's music in conjunction with the modes, even in music much later than the Préludes, suggests that the value of absolute pitch in defining color resembles its role in defining key. Indeed, two of the most important, and frequently recurring, keys in Messiaen are linked to specific modal transpositions and have, through them, specific color identities: A major to 3(3) and FJ major to 2(1). When governed by Mode 3(3), for instance, A major is blue or blue and green, as in the eighth movement of Des canyons aux étoiles or the seventeenth of the Vingt Regards.

It must be emphasized, however, that for Messiaen keys themselves do not have fixed color associations. Messiaen is perhaps overstating the case when he says: "There are tonal passages in my works but they are precisely blended with these modes which color them and finally they have little importance" (Samuel, 1976, p. 23). But it is clear, at least, from which direction control over sonority is exerted. Earlier in the same interview, Messiaen asserts that "One really can't talk of an exact relationship between a key and a color: that would be a rather naïve way of expressing oneself because . . . colors are complex and are linked to equally complex chords and sounds" (Samuel, 1976, p. 19). For this reason, Messiaen has also spoken of his modes as being "at once in the atmosphere of several tonalities, without poly tonality

" for they leave him "free to give predominance to one of the tonalities or to leave the tonal impression unsettled" (Messiaen, 1944, Vol. 1, p. 58, emphasis in original). Particularly in the early works, then, but also occasionally in the later ones, whole movements are composed in such a way as to sound more or less "tonal" - that is, in a key,

Fig. 1. Huit Préludes, Vili: (a) mm. 33-34. (b) mm. 149-150.


or at least around a key - while the actual pitch usage is mainly in the service of a particular transposition of one of the modes, or one such transposition slightly inflected by another modal transposition (perhaps one explicitly present elsewhere in the texture).

The first of the Préludes provides an excellent sample of this technique (see Figure 2). Messiaen has described this work as "orange, veined with violet" (Messiaen, 1979, p. 22). Orange as the principal color, then, would seem to be allied with E major; however, it is a rather odd sort of E major, with the recurrent F-natural and the series of chords in thirty-seconds on the upper staff. Ignoring the latter for the moment, we proceed to consider which of the modal transpositions might conceivably encompass the key of E major. Taking the tonic triad as a sine qua non, we find five candidates: 2(2), 3(1), 3(2), 4(4), and 6(1). Mode 3(1) can be eliminated immediately, for it does not provide access to the F-natural; in turn, none of the others except 2(2) and 3(2) can supply the added (major) sixth, an essential element in all of Messiaen's tonally oriented writing and of obvious importance in m. 4. These two remaining modal transpositions are the predominant organizational forces in this Prelude. The orange color, however, must be ascribed to 3(2) alone, for 2(2) is unable to provide the A and D-sharp that subsequently (beyond the compass of Figure 2) become important. This conclusion squares with Messiaen's designation of orange as the dominant color in Mode 3 in general. But 2(2) has, nevertheless, a crucial role to play: the chords in thirty-seconds are the "violet veins," for they are built entirely from the contents of Mode 2(2). Furthermore, the intermittent presence of this modal transposition in this form influences the rest of the texture, occasionally supplying notes that are foreign to Mode 3(2), such as the A-sharp in m. 2 and the D-natural in m. 3. This can occur all the more readily because, as noted above, 2(2) neatly interlocks with 3(2) at the E-major triad and also holds in common with 3(2) the added sixth C-sharp and the lowered second F-natural. (Figure 2b shows this interlock.)

One might gather from the foregoing that keys do have, in Messiaen's mind's ear and eye, at least the power to influence the color qualities of the modes in the direction of their general character, away from the specific attributes of particular transpositions. (We see from Table 2 that Mode 3(2) elsewhere is often "grey and gold.") There is other evidence attesting to this power of key, among which we note in particular the fifth of the Vingt Regards, where Mode 2 is used in all three of its transpositions, "especially 2(1)," says Messiaen, "of which the dominant color is blue-violet." Next he notes "all these violets and blues" circulating in the generally luminous atmosphere of F-sharp major (which absorbs the colors somewhat). This description (of the blues and violets circulating) evidently applies to the music in all three transpositions (Messiaen, 1979, p. 43). Another example, documented by the same source: The middle section of Prelude 2, with a signature of six sharps and a clear orientation to F-sharp major, is described as "silvery, set with diamonds." Here no single transposition of Mode 2 predominates; it would seem that this relatively equal treatment of the three transpositions neutralizes the blue and violet tendencies of 2(1 ), since Messiaen does not mention them (Messiaen, 1979, p. 22).

Registrai distribution, or spacing, of the sonorities is also an important factor in drawing distinctions between colors. Where the modes are firmly in control, matters of spacing are usually entirely secondary; nonetheless, for many of the individual modal transpositions there are typical arrangements of vertically adjacent intervals and standard patterns of overall distribution of such intervals - arrangements and patterns that also serve to differentiate presentations of one color or complex of colors from those of another color or complex. The consistencies thereby established are of considerable value in analyzing other passages whose modal characters are either ambiguous or non-existent (some of which will be discussed later). Among the many examples of spacing consistency that could be cited are the two excerpts reproduced in Figure 3, from two works written 30 years apart. Below each excerpt is displayed the vertically adjacent interval content, expressed in numbers of semitones. The mode in both cases is 3(1); the color quality is also the same ("orange, gold, and milky white").

Finally, we should touch upon the matter of chord connection, or voice leading. By and large this is entirely ancillary to color definition; much more important are the qualities of


the individual chords. Messiaen, after all, regards his modes as harmonic, not melodic, constructs (Samuel, 1976, p. 23). In passages where they are employed, often the voice leading between chords in series simply corresponds to the scalar order of the mode. See Figure 4, which is in Mode 3(3). Contour is also worth mentioning here, for the ascending motion of the series of chords may well be intended to depict the rising flight of the kingfisher. As for the "blue-green" label, notice that the first and last chords are arranged to emphasize the A-major triad (top three notes).

Fig. 2. Huit Préludes, I, mm. 1 -5.

Messiaen 's Synaesthesia 5 1

Fig. 3. (a) Vingt Regards, XIII, mm. 49-51 (score, p. 94). (b) Des canyons aux étoiles, VII, rehearsal 42 (score, p. 227).

Fig. 4. Catalogue d'oiseaux, IX, m. 10.


Analysis

The previous examples were chosen to illustrate types of approaches to the material; we turn now to specific analytical problems through which our methodology can be further developed.

We have already noted that passages in the same individual modal transposition tend to bear similar or identical color labels. Sometimes the correspondence is exact, the color labels the same; often, however, the particular shades involved are slightly or even substantially different. In such cases, how can the differentiation be measured? Take a look at Figure 5, which juxtaposes two sets of excerpts from No. 7 of the Catalogue d'oiseaux: "La rousserolle effarvatte" (reed warbler). Mode 2(1) is employed in both: in the first instance (Figure 5a) to depict the sunrise (colors: rose and mauve); in the second, at greater length (Figure 5b) to depict the sunset (colors: red and violet).7 In this case, within the limits of modal transpositional identity, pitch-class sets are a useful index of differentiation. Notice that 4-Z29 (repeated many times), 5-25 (also repeated), and 4-26 are found in both passages, but that otherwise the set content is divergent. However, the sets that are held in common account for a disproportionate number of the total sonorities in both passages - especially 4-Z29 and 5-25, which are also especially typical sonorities in this mode according to the models of the Tech- nique (see Messiaen, 1944, examples 317-324). One spacing of 4-Z29 is used in both locations far more frequently than any other: 9,2,6,6 (in semitones, reading from bottom to top); and one of the two spacings of 5-25 in the sunrise passage, 7,3,6,5, is repeated four times in the sunset. In sum, the clear and numerous points of analogy between the two passages are a plausible portrayal of the analogy (not identity) between sunrise and sunset and must be considered part of Messiaen's effort here to convey a sense of the passing of time, as one part of the day gives way to another and the song of the reed warbler - the main subject of this piece - changes accordingly.

The inverse problem - measuring the degree of correspondence between sonorities in different modes altogether but bearing color labels that over- lap in some way - comes up in the same work. As the sunrise advances, rose and mauve give way to simple mauve, and the mode changes from 2(1) to 4(5). Figure 6a shows one of the mauve progressions (the others simply re- peat these sets and spacings at various other pitch levels). Granted that the difference here is probably the main point, still we wonder why mauve (a

7. The arrangement of this figure requires a word of explanation. Both sunrise and sunset are intermittent events in the texture of this piece; thus the excerpts in Figure 5 are not, for the most part, contiguous. Furthermore, the beginning of the sunrise excerpts shows that another color, orange, is also present; but it is portrayed in a different mode. The only chords relevant to the purposes of this figure are those presented completely on the lower two staves.


I oo CO

d

I

R I

T- (

d Oh

c D

i 3

I

I"


1

§ ob


Fig. 6. Catalogue d'oiseaux, VII: (a) score, p. 13; (b) score, p. 39.

kind of moderate violet) is characteristic of both groups of chords. Again, set identities provide a partial answer, for two of the three different chords in 4(5) - different, that is, from the point of view of spacing - are both 5-28, a set which is a component of the earlier 2(1) material. Perhaps even more significant, however, is the vertical order of pitches in these 5-28's: four- note "slices," as shown, yield 4-27 and 4-Z29 - the latter of which is famil- iar as a crucial component of the sunrise of rose and mauve. Now, set 4-Z29 also figures heavily in the sunset of red and violet, so it is not too surprising to find another passage in 4(5), marked "violet," occurring as the sunset progresses. (Figure 6b presents one of the violet progressions; all the other violet sets and spacings are the same as these.) The chords are also the same as those of the earlier 4(5) progression but are in reverse order and are built on successively lower pitches, reversing the scheme of the earlier progression. Quite possibly the comparison shows that the deeper shade of violet in the sunset at this stage is the product of the descending motion of the chords. However, most of Messiaen's colored passages are not so explicitly pictorial in intent as are these.

Model qualities become more difficult to interpret when not all the pitches of a chord or passage belong to the same transposition of a mode. In most of the illustrations in Messiaen (1944) drawn from the composer's


own works, the modal transpositions are employed in their purest form, but in Chapter 17 he specifically admits the possibility that modes may "borrow from themselves in their different transpositions" (Messiaen, 1944, Vol. 1, p. 62). Further investigation, and correlation of the available data, reveals that this sort of borrowing need not disrupt color identity any more than it interferes with the reigning modal transposition. For an example, we turn to the twelfth and last movement of Des canyons aux étoiles (Figure 7). This movement begins with a chorale-like texture in the brass and woodwinds that, according to Messiaen's notes on the work, is written in Mode 3(2) (colors: grey and gold) and Mode 3(3) (blue and green).

Measures 1-4 are straightforward, consisting as they do entirely of pitches in 3(2). Measures 5-7 are all in 3(3) except for the E-flat in the second chord (m. 6); this must be considered a pitch borrowed from 3(2). (The borrowed notes are given in parentheses above each chord.) When the chorale texture returns with new material in mm. 47-48 and 5 1 -52, the transposition in use changes from one chord to the next, with G in m. 47 (first chord) borrowed from 3(2) and B-flat in the next chord borrowed from 3(3); then mm. 51-52 are all 3(3), but with E-flat in the first chord, G and B in the second from 3(2). As the movement continues, borrowing becomes the rule rather than the exception in both transpositions. In contrast, material from an earlier movement in the same work, also grey and gold, adheres much more closely to the pure form of 3(2). Figure 8 offers a side-by-side comparison of the chordal contents of 3(2) in the fourth and twelfth movements of Des canyons aux étoiles} Here we have the opportunity to study the effects of borrowing upon set correspondences. Aside from 6-15, which appears several times in the same spacing in both passages, and 7-20, no sets are literally held in common. However, the fact that we are comparing an orchestral passage (twelfth movement) with one for solo piano (fourth

Fig. 7. Des canyons aux étoiles, XII, mm. 1-7, 47-48, 51-52.

8. This example, it should be noted, is of summary nature; thus the contents neither of 8a nor of 8b are, for the most part, contiguous.

Messiaen* s Synaesthesia 57

Fig. 8. Chords in Mode 3(2): (a) Des canyons aux étoiles, IV; (b) Des canyons aux étoiles, XII.

movement) suggests that an adjustment to allow for a difference in norma- tive size of the chords (that is, the cardinality of the sets involved) might be appropriate. Table 3 displays the relevant subsets of the larger sets in both movements. The wealth of interrelationships serves as a convincing demon- stration that the essential qualities of 3(2) have remained intact, despite the intrusion of a few foreign pitches in the twelfth movement.

Even greater challenges are posed by passages for which Messiaen has supplied lists of colors and color combinations without specifying their exact locations in the music. In such situations, the known color associations of the various modal transpositions can be of great utility in determining which colors go with which chords - but if the modal identities themselves turn out to be somewhat obscure, then on what grounds can analytical deci- sions be made? A case in point is the middle section of the second movement of Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Messiaen's brief characterization of the color of this music as "blue-orange" has turned out to be insufficiently precise, in light of a subsequent statement in which he has mentioned, besides blue-orange, blue and mauve, gold and green, and violet-red, with an overriding quality of steely grey (Messiaen, 1979, p. 40). The piano part, entirely chordal, divides readily into five progressions, some of which are repeated. By far the most frequently recurring are the first two progressions to appear; these are labeled (a) and (b) in Figure 9.

SS Jonathan W. Bernard

Table 3 Canyons IV and XII: Selected Subsets of Chords in Mode 3(2)

6-14: 5-21,5-z37 6-15: 5-21,5-26 6-21: 5-26,5-28 6-31: 5-21,5-26 6-z43: 5-28 6-z44: 5-21, 5-22, 5-z37 7-zl2: 5-28 7-20: 5-21, 5-22, 5-z37

6-z44 7-24: 5-26, 5-28, 5-34, 5-z37 8-4: 5-21, 5-22, 5-26, 5-z37

6-14,6-15 8-z29: 5-21, 5-22, 5-26, 5-28, 5-34, 5-z37

6-15, 6-21, 6-z43,6-z44 7-20, 7-24

Of the two, (b) is less difficult to deal with: of the eight chords, the first four are in Mode 3, with successive pairs in the second and third transpositions; the second four are in Mode 2(2). By referring to the table of known color correspondences (Table 2), we can sort out the colors evoked here without much difficulty. The Mode 3(2) chords are grey and gold, the grey a part of that overriding color mentioned by Messiaen; the chords in 3(3) are blue-orange. Why blue-orange, though, instead of, say, blue and green? Where a choice presents itself in Table 2, other considerations may come into play, such as specific resemblances to other pieces. The cascading ostinato of chords in Prelude 5, similar to the present passage in registrai and contoural terms, provides the correspondence in this case. As for Mode 2(2), here it evokes blue and mauve, extremely close to the blue-violet of 2(2) in the fifth of the Vingt Regards. Here it might be objected that other colors are plausible for 2(2) - plain violet, for instance, or gold and brown. But blue and mauve is the correct choice here, not only because it is on Mes- siaen's list but also because of the subsidiary feature of spacing. The vertical order of intervals in the 2(2) chords of the Quatuor, again reading from bottom to top, is 5,4,2,1,5,4,2, then 4,5,1,2,4,5,1. These spacings correspond quite closely to those of some of the repeated sonorities in the fifth movement of Vingt Regards, a piece which Messiaen has described as being characterized by various shades of blue and violet: 2,4,5,1; 5,4,2,1; 4,5,1,2.

Progression (a) is more problematic. Again there are eight different chords in succession, but no temporally adjacent pair belongs to the same modal transposition - and because each chord has but four notes, taken in- dividually they are quite ambiguous. How is it possible to choose? Here, spacing considerations are a great help. Notice first that the vertically adjacent intervals, given below the music, quite clearly divide the progression


Fig. 9. Quatuor pour la fin du temps, II, mm. 21-22.


into two groups of four chords. Further, by comparing these patterns to others characteristic of progressions with known modal identities, we discover that strings of 4s are typical only of Mode 3 progressions, strings of 5 s mainly of Mode 4 progressions. This leads us straightforwardly to the conclusion that the first two chords are in Mode 3(3) (again blue-orange) with pitch B borrowed from 3(2), the modal transposition to which the next two chords belong and in which F-sharp is borrowed from 3(3). By the same token, the second part of the progression consists of a pair of chords in Mode 4(3) (F-sharp borrowed) followed by another pair which could be in either 4(5) or 4(6). Here various shades of violet predominate, although the only known color identity for 4(3) is violet and yellow, which in this context is somewhat puzzling. There is no definitive basis for selecting either 4(5) or 4(6) for the last pair of chords, but we should notice that 4(6), borrowing pitch A from 4(3), offers closer affinities to the "violet-red" spe- cified by Messiaen for this passage. It also supplies mixtures with grey, which as a general feature of this music seems at least partly the product of the rapid (although not regular) cycling of the 12-note chromatic. This occurs, for instance, in the last four chords of (a) and again in the first four chords of (b). Conceivably at least some of the modal choices may have been made to reinforce this effect of enveloping greyness.

We have now accounted for all the colors listed by Messiaen for this passage, except green. We would therefore expect this color to arise later, probably in combination with gold, as a part of the third, fourth, and/or fifth progression, which are not analyzed here.

Even in the Quatuor excerpt, where there are notable obstacles to the application of the modes of limited transposition, they remain an appropriate analytical tool. The Quatuor is still an early work, and the modes are without doubt the linchpin of Messiaen's harmonic practice up until the time of the Technique. After that, Messiaen continues to use his modes ex- tensively, at least until the 1970s, but as time passes they are less and less exclusively in control. Color is still a principal preoccupation, but it is often expressed through different means.

In three works of the early 1960s, Chronochromie, Sept Haikai, and Couleurs de la cité céleste, it is clear that the norms of modal usage, developed at Messiaen's hands over the previous 35 years or so, still exert some influence - occasionally a great deal of influence - over the formation of color chords; but whereas in earlier music pc-set identity and spacing were largely subsidiary to modal identity, here they often take on independent meaning, to the point where the closest modal approximation (if there is no perfect correspondence with a single modal transposition) may even be overruled by pc-set or spacing considerations. The fifth movement of Sept Haikai and numerous passages throughout Couleurs de la cité céleste, in which single chords and progressions of varying lengths are actually labeled


with color names in the printed score, provide a testing ground for the strength of modal influence in Messiaen's later music.

In a few passages in Couleurs, mode is firmly in control. At R75, for instance, "blue violet" is conveyed in Mode 2(1); the two measures before R76, in 3(1), are "orange, gold, and milky white"; then the seven measures following R76 are written completely in 4(5) and are marked "violet." In contrast, the five chords in the four measures before R14, labeled "red, orange, and gold," cannot be so neatly categorized (Figure 10). Only the last chord in this progression fits a modal identity, and it is 4(3), for which yellow and violet is the only certain color association. Each of the remaining four is an approximation of some transposition of Mode 3; the first could be called 3(4) with a borrowed C. Table 2 reveals that 3(4) is most often associated with orange and red, which agrees with the given color label for this passage - as does the fact that in general Mode 3 is dominated by shades of orange and gold. However, certain other data must also be taken into account, for which we turn to the fifth movement of Sept Haikai.

In Figure 1 1 are shown the ostinato chords of this movement with their color labels. The orange chord, set 8-5, is the same as the first chord in the excerpt from Couleurs quoted in Figure 10, at t = 4; thus it should have the same modal affinity as the 8-5 in Couleurs, yet here in Sept Haikai the

Fig. 10. Couleurs de la cité céleste, before rehearsal 14: "red, orange, and gold."

Fig. 11. Sept Haikai, V: ostinato chords.


chord has no red component. Red is instead 8-14, again t = 4 with respect to the 8-14 in Figure 10. Both groups of pitches, considered from a modal point of view, come closest to the contents of 3 ( 1 ), but this is a modal transposition known to us for its shades of orange and gold, not red. Red, in fact, is not a color much in evidence - and not at all in evidence by itself - in the scheme of mode-associated colors tabulated earlier; it is quite likely, in fact, that Messiaen has stepped outside the modal system specifically to obtain this color. The set 8-14 recurs at R74 in Couleurs as the last chord for the wind instruments in a series labeled "red, touched with blue" (Figure 12). Returning to Figure 1 1, we find that the chord labeled "grey and gold" is set 8-4, which also occurs in the "red, orange, and gold" passage of Figure 10. Conceivably, there is something contextual at work here, so that what evokes grey and gold in one place evokes simple gold in the other. However, neither of these colors is compatible with the identity of 8-4, the second wind chord in Figure 12, as a red chord.

With pc-set identity now somewhat in doubt as a reliable indicator of color identity, we turn once again to spacing and discover that all four of these 8-4's are arranged to form different vertical orders of intervals. (For the sake of convenient comparison these spacings are placed side by side in Figure 13.) In the absence of any kind of real modal context, spacing does become a primary agent of color differentiation for Messiaen. Its impor-

Fig. 12. Couleurs de la cité céleste, rehearsal 74: "red, touched with blue."

Fig. 13. Spacings of set 8-4.


tance in this case is evident from another work in which grey and gold are known to be combined: the last movement of Canyons, cited earlier. In m. 128 (first two chords) the same spacing as that of the grey and gold chord in Sept Haikai, 5,3,2,1,7,3,4, appears as part of the texture under the control of Mode 3 (2). (These two chords appear as the first two 8-4's in Figure 8b.) The aforementioned chord in Sept Haikai, not being in a modal context, need not belong to this modal transposition, and in fact it does not. The spacing is evidently what gives it its color. Another exact spacing correspondence links the 8-14 in "red touched with blue" (Figure 12) and the 8-14 in Sept Haikai (Figure 1 1): in both cases the order of adjacent intervals from bottom to top is 5,2,2,4,1,6,2. Does the spacing of the (putatively) red chord in "orange, red, and gold" also correspond to this order? Initially it would seem not; but the spacings are actually quite closely related by a cri- terion to be called superimposition (see Figure 14a).

Here the interval 9 at the bottom of spacing (x) groups the adjacent intervals 5,2,2 at the bottom of spacing (y) ; then interval 4 corresponds to 4, and 1 corresponds to 1; then adjacent intervals 3,2,1 in spacing (x) group to form the summing interval 6 in spacing (y); then, finally, interval 2 corresponds to 2 at the top of both spacings. For this sort of relationship to be at all meaningful, such superimpositions should account for all intervals in at least one of the spacings and should not resort to overlapping or doubling up of intervals. For instance, the attempt at superimposition shown in Fig- ure 14b does not reveal a convincing correspondence.

Other color associations in Couleurs bring into play at various points the complementary chords in the piano. The reader will notice that the piano chord in Figure 11, labeled "blue," is the literal, 12-note complement of the red chord. Likewise, in Figure 12, it is clear that despite the lack of an ex- plicit color label, the "blue touch" is supplied by the piano chord struck at the very end of the passage, for this chord is the literal complement of the red chord already discussed. The prominent A-major triad embedded in the

Fig. 14. Superimposition.


blue tetrachord suggests that the color of this chord derives directly from the modal identity 3(3) (see also Griffiths, 1985, pp. 203-205). Messiaen's color choices have apparently long been influenced by a desire to present colors that complement one another, but the procedure of literal, 12-note complementation represented by the red 8-14 and the blue 4-14 is something new to his work in the early 1960s. Like the blue here, other colors presented in pairs also owe their color qualities to modal associations; these are usually traceable, however, not through pitch content but through in- tervallic spacing. Consider the passage after R13 labeled "emerald green and amethyst violet" (Figure 15). In the first complementary pair of chords, the brass and clarinets present spacing 2,2,2,7,8,6,4, which strongly resembles one in particular of the blue and green chords of Mode 3(3) in Can- yons. (Below the figure, at (a), is shown the superimposition, by which the chord from Canyons is absorbed, as a kind of subset, into the larger sonority from Couleurs.) The piano, for its part, presents 9,6,11; this can be entirely superimposed upon a typical 4(5) violet sonority from another movement of Canyons, as shown at (b). It can also be partially superimposed upon one of the repeated 4(5) violet chords from the sunset passage in Cata- logue d'oiseaux, No. 7. Finally, at (c), note that the second large chord in Example 15, 2,2,4,5,5,5,4, has affinities both. to 4(4) (deep violet): 2,4,5 and to 2(3) (green): 4,5; 5,4. Note that in its wide expanse and repeated intervals it subsumes both of these interval orders.

Fig. 15. Couleurs de la cité céleste, after rehearsal 13: "emerald green, amethyst violet."

Messiaen 's Synaesthesia 65

Armed with spacing criteria, we are now prepared to deal with Chronochromie, a large work for orchestra in which certain sections, notably the two "Strophes," feature colored chordal strata. These strata are most obviously differentiated rhythmically, but each in turn is quite elabo- rately variegated as it proceeds. From Messiaen's description it is clear that the constantly changing colors are vital to perception of the differences between the various durations:

One note-value will be linked to a red sonority flecked with blue - another will be linked to a milky-white sonorous complex embellished with orange and hemmed with gold - another will use green, orange, and violet in parallel bands - another will be pale grey with green and violet reflections - another will be frankly violet or frankly red. Juxta- posed or superimposed, all [note-values] will be made prominent by colorations, .... (Samuel, 1976, p. 91)

But which colors go with which chords? Messiaen does not say. Since it is not at all clear, either, from the phrasing of Messiaen's statement that he has given a complete list of colors, it would be reasonable to expect a less than perfect correlation with what we have already found out about color sonorities. Nevertheless, the results are generally gratifying. Figures 16 through 18 examine each of the three strata of Strophe 1 in turn, beginning in Figure 16 with the eight first violins. The seven different spacings are dis-

played with other chords of known color identity whose spacings either match exactly or can be related by superimposition.

A few comments are in order. Chord (a) is set 8-6, but the match by su-

perimposition is with an 8-16 (from a passage in Sept Haikai not previously discussed). Chords (b) and (c) are each linked with two chords from Sept Haikai - one of which, the red chord 5,2,2,4,1,6,2, also appears in

Fig. 16. Chronochromie, Strophe I, violins I. Sources: (a) Sept Haikai, V: red, lilac, purple violet; (b) Sept Haikai, V: (1) red, (2) red, lilac, purple violet; (c) same as (b); (d) Sept Haikai, V: grey and gold; (d)

' same as (d) ; (e) Couleurs, R74: red touched with blue; (f) Sept Haikai, V: orange.


Couleurs, as noted earlier. The correspondence of both (b) and (c) with 4,3,2,4,1,6,2 by superimposition clearly indicates that this chord is red as well. Note that its source is in a passage marked "red, lilac, and purple violet." Chords (d) and (d)' are the same in spacing except for the order of the two top intervals; thus the exact match for (d) becomes a match by superimposition for (d)'. Neither grey and gold, (d) and (d)', nor orange, (f), is on the official list of colors, but their identities here are probably legitimate.

In Figure 17, the seven second violins present but four different spacings, three of which are duplicated exactly in the same passage from Sept Haikai referred to earlier; thus this stratum is dominated by shades of red and violet. The fourth spacing, however, clearly owes its origins to Mode 3(4), which supplies its characteristic red-hued orange here. As for the violas and cellos (Figure 18), their two different spacings correspond, interestingly, to the Z-related heptachords 7-Z12 and 7-Z36; the two corresponding colors stem from different transpositions of the same mode, as shown.

In sum, of the six colors or color combinations mentioned by Messiaen, four have been accounted for. Identifying the locations of the "green, or-

Fig. 17. Chronochromie, Strophe I, violins II. Sources: (a), (b), (c) Sept Haikai, V: red, lilac, purple violet; (d) Canyons, VII: orange striped with red.

Fig. 18. Chronochromie, Strophe I, violas and cellos. Sources: (a) Canyons, XII: grey and gold; Vingt Regards, XIII: orange, gold, milky white.


ange, and violet in parallel bands" and the "pale grey with green and violet reflections" is a far more difficult task, for at this point we have no certain matches of sonorities with these particular color combinations. Undoubt- edly, however, these colors are present somewhere in the texture of Chron- ochromie - perhaps in Strophe 2, not examined here - and by working with the color chords that are known it should be possible to deduce their identities.

Conclusion

We may summarize the hierarchy of criteria for color identity in Mes- siaen's music as follows. Modal quality, specifically mode-transpositional quality, always takes precedence in any context, however local, in which modes are consistently portrayed and maintained. Especially in the early music, we may expect tonal or key-oriented identity to merge with modal identity in many situations, resulting in various degrees of divergence from the literal contents of the modal collection. Subsets sometimes stand in place of the complete modal collection, but if they are to be identified in analysis as pitch-class sets they must remain tied to specific pitch contents. Chords formed within modal transpositions have characteristic spacings, just as modes in general have characteristic subsets; both play important analytical roles at points where the modal quality is temporarily ambiguous or in suspension (but not contextually absent). Where modal quality is not present at all, spacing considerations come to the fore and specific pitch level is relegated to only intermittent significance. Pc-set identity is often a helpful indicator of where spacing matches and superimpositions are likely to occur; but because spacing is primary, in its color affinities it frequently overrides set identity. As we have seen, two different spacings of the same set may correspond to two different colors; or, conversely, two different sets may, by virtue of superimposition, correspond to the same color or color complex. Under these new conditions, spacing offers access to the "characteristic chords" of the various modal transpositions and continues to draw upon them as sources of information about specific colors evoked by specific sounds.

The work described in this article leaves a good many questions unan- swered. Some of these are owing to the nature of the data initially gathered, which although undoubtedly accurate as far as they go are not always as revealing as one would like. Perhaps Messiaen himself could be persuaded to divulge more details concerning the colors on his palette and the ways in which he has applied them. Other questions will require further analytical refinements to be dealt with satisfactorily. Overall, however, the outlook is promising - not only for the solution to the remaining enigmas of color correspondence, but also for further analytical applications. Eventually, it may


even be possible - although the completion of such a task is obviously far in the future - to generalize what is learned from the color correspondences into a theory of harmonic structure for his music, based upon characteristic interval content and order.9

9. This paper, in slightly different form, was delivered at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory, Vancouver, November 1985.

References

Forte, A. The structure of atonal music. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973.

Goléa, A. Rencontres avec Olivier Messiaen. Paris: Julliard, 1960. Griffiths, P. Olivier Messiaen and the music of time. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,

1985. Johnson, R. S. Messiaen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Marks, L. E. On colored-hearing synaesthesia: Cross-modal translations of sensory dimen-

sions. Psychological Bulletin, 1975, 82, 303-331. Marks, L. E. The unity of the senses: Interrelations among the modalities. New York: Aca-

demic Press, 1978. Messiaen, O. The Technique of my musical language (2 vols.). [John Satterfield, Trans.]

Paris: Leduc, 1944. Messiaen, O. Olivier Messiaen analyse ses oeuvres. In nommage a Ultvter Messiaen:

novembre-décembre 1978. Paris: La Recherche artistique, 1979. Peacock, K. Synaesthetic perception: Alexander Scriabin's color hearing. Music Perception,

1985,2,483-505. Samuel, C. Conversations with Olivier Messiaen. [Felix Aprahamian, Trans.] London:

Stainerôc Bell, 1976. The New Oxford Companion to Music (2 vols.). Oxford and New York: Oxford University

Press, 1983.

Documents

Messiaen's Synaesthesia: The Correspondence between Color ... · Messiaen has not learned these color correspondences, and he has not in- vented them as if to cover all the colors