Portrait of Debussy. 8: Debussy and Messiaen

Roger Smalley

The Musical Times, Vol. 109, No. 1500. (Feb., 1968), pp. 128-131.

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Portrait of Debussy-8 Roger Smalley

DEBUSSY AND MESSIAEN

In this series of articles we attempt to build a com- posite portrait of Debussy the musician through examination of the various impressions he left on the music of other composers: in general, and also in particular. by documentation of what works they heard, and when, their statements, and the reflections found in their own compositions.

After the war we moved to Nantes and it was there that I met my first teacher, k h a n de Gibon, who gave me as a present Debussy's PeNPas et MPIisande (an inconceivable thing in 1918 for a provincial teacher to give Pellias et MPlisande to a 10-year-old boy!). It was this score that decided my vocation.'

What, one wonders, were the qualities of this score, and of Debussy's music in general, which must have made such a profound impression on the young Messiaen? Superficially they seem to have littleincommon. The shimmering, intangible orches- tral writingof Debussy, which is based on the mixing and blending of timbres and the presentation of a single idea in simultaneous multiple scorings (eg Jeux, fig lo), finds little correlation with Messiaen's orchestral technique, which is based on the powerful opposition of orchestral groups-a conception which is Brucknerian in more senses than this one only. The Debussyan orchestral ideal was developed much more obviously by Schoenberg (Five Orches- tral Pieces op 15, especially the third and fifth) and by Berg (Altenberg Lieder op 4), both of whom admired Debussy intensely.

The restraint of much of Debussy's music-perhaps most noticeable of all in PellPas et Mili- sande--can hardly be said to be a characteristic of Messiaen either. His music possesses an unin-hibited appetite for gargantuan emotional excess on a Wagnerian scale. and it would seem that the in- spiration of Messiaen's interpretation of the Tristan legend (in three works-Hurawi, Cinq Rtchants, and the Turangalila-Symphonic) owes as much to Wag- ner's (Tristan und Isolde) as to Debussy's (Pelleas et Milisande). The emotional scope of Wagner is wedded to a musical language derived from Debussy. But the differences we have noted lie on the surface; and music is neither made, nor should it be listened to, for its surface alone. There must be a close link between Debussy and Messiaen because we in-stinctively recognize them both (and Boulez too) as belonging to the same, unmistakably French, culture. Indeed Messiaen seems to indicate that his links with Debussy are extraordinarily close. In his book, The technique of my musical 1anguage"e gives examples of how he has derived some of his own musical ideas from Debussy, in both the realms of melody and of harmony.

On p.31 he discusses which intervals to use in the Ifrom 'Who are you, Olivier Messiaen?', an intsrliew between Messiaen an3 Bernard Gavoty; see Tempo, summer 1961 lLeduc (Paris 1944)

construction of melodies, and decides to choose (among others) the descending major sixth 'because of the importance of the added sixth in the perfect chord (ie triad), foreseen by Rameau and established by Debussy, and because Mozart, that great melod- ist, often used the descending major sixth'. On p.32 we find this: 'The three notes written by Debussy at the beginning of his Refiets duns I'eau (ex 1 ) will

serve to engender a great number of melodic con- tours' (eg exx 2 and 3). On p. 47 he writes about added-note chords :

With the advent of Claude Debussy, one spoke of appoggiaturas without resolution, of passing notes with no issue, etc. In fact one found them in his first works. In PeNPas et MPlisande, Estampes, the Prdludes, the Images for piano, it is a question of foreign notes, with neither pre- paration nor resolution, without particular expressive accent, which tranquillity makes a part of the chord, changing its colour, giving it a spice, a new perfume.

He then quotes two chords from PellPas (ex 4). 'They will be the genesis of the following example' (ex 5). He elaborates the same type of chord pro- gression (the added notes are ringed), and then adds different notes to each of the two chords (ex 6) ;

these four chords occur at the beginning of 'La maison' from the Poemes pour Mi for soprano and piano.

What an extraordinary way to compose! In The technique of my musical language he also quotes other examples of Debussy, of Mussorgsky, and of Ravel, which he has used in this same way. The extent to which he does it must, of course, remain unknown, for reasons which will soon become obvious. It would seem to be unique in the recent

history of music for a composer to base his music so closely on that of another composer-indeed it might almost seem to amount to plagiarism, were it not for one important thing: Messiaen's results are very different from the models, and bear the unmis- takable stamp of his own musical personality. This is because the fragments of Debussy have been, as he puts it, 'filtered' through his own technical processes.

The most important of these transforming devices is his series of seven 'modes of limited transposition'. These are scalic arrangements of a selection of all of the twelve notes in a number of cells having the same intervallic content. Because of their sym-metrical nature they have a limited number of possible transpositions. Messiaen's 'first mode' is, in fact, the whole-tone scale of Debussy, but he does not use it often-because, as he says, 'Debussy in PellPas et Milisande, and after him Paul Dukas, have made such remarkable use of it that there is nothing more to add'. The most pervasive of Mes- siaen's modes is the second (ex 7). Ex 2 belongs to

En 7 (qe x 2'

this mode. It will be seen that, starting on F, the two intervals of the fragment of Debussy (ex I), ascending fifth and descending fourth, are not available. The nearest approximations within the mode are ascending tritone and descending major third, which Messiaen uses. Similarly with ex 3, which belongs to mode 3, on C (ex 8). The modes

,- -

can therefore be seen to act as musical prisms, slightly but significantly changing the contours of the basic melodic material which is passed through them. The modes can modulate from one trans- position to another, from one mode to another, or be related to the major scale. Compare this with Debussy: 'Music is neither major nor minor. Minor thirds and major thirds should be com-bined [cf ex 7, notes 1, 3, 4, and 5, 7, 81, modulation thus becoming more flexible. The mode is that which one happens to choose at the moment. It is in- con~ tan t . ' ~

A mode is a form of vertical serialism. It is to be expected that, in contrast to the horizontally con- ceived serialism of Schoenberg, Debussy and Messiaen should have used modes, because French music has always been harmonically orientated (Rameau, Berlioz, Franck). The use of a mode of limited transpositions-and the whole-tone scale is the most limited of all, having only two positions- produces an essentially static effect which is com- mon to much of the music of both composers. This static quality is also reflected in the similarity of the formal processes shared by the two composers.

Both Debussy and Messiaen at first tended to write mainly short pieces (if some of Messiaen's short pieces turn out to be extremely long, this is only because of their infinite slowness). Larger pieces, when they came, did not fall back, as in the 3from 'Conversations with Ernest Giraud', c1889/90 (AppendixB of Lockspeiser, Drbussy: hi\ life and mind,i)

case of so many other French composers, on Germanic forms and developmental processes. Rather the large form is an accumulation of smaller units-but never a merely arbitrary juxtaposition of unrelated ideas. There is, however, an intangible quality about the forms of works such as Jeux, the studies in fourths and in grace-notes (Debussy), Cant&yodjaya, 'La rousserolle effarvate' (Mes-siaen). They are poetic music in the strict sense of the word in that they are the product of a continu- ing thought process which produces a series of images related, not by a background of musical logic which can be precisely demonstrated as in Beethoven or Schoenberg, but simply by the fact that they were generated by that same thought process.

Debussy was a friend and admirer of impres- sionist and symbolist poets such as MallarmC and Pierre Louys. Messiaen says: '1 have been a great reader and admirer of Pierre Reverdy and Paul eluard. I am, therefore, some sort of surrealist in the poems for my works, if not in my music. For I myself have written the poems for all my work^'.^ MallarmC wrote about his new poetical process:

I have found an intimate and peculiar manner of depicting and setting down very fugitive impres- sions. What is frightening is that all these impressions are required to be woven together as in a symphony, and that I often spend whole days wondering whether one idea can be asso-ciated with another, what therelationship between them may be, and what effect they will create.j

'op cif (note I) 6quoted in Lockspeiser, op cit, p.152

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This statement could be applied very closely to Debussy's music. And through and beyond Debussy to Boulez, the 'Constellation-Miroir' of whose third piano sonata can be seen as an attempt to multiply the number of associations, relationships and effects as Mallarme himself eventually did in 'Un coup de des' and 'Le livre'.

Another quotation from Mallarme connects very nleaningfully with Debussy. 'To name an object is to destroy three-quarters of the enjoyment of a poem, which is made up of the pleasure of guessing little by little; to suggest if-that is the ideal.'6 It is significant, for instance, that Debussy placed the titles of his PrPludes at the ends,and not, convention- ally, at the beginnings of the pieces. I t is as if he did not want to name the object, but to let us do a little guessing-not to pin down the object for us from the start, but to leave it in a suggestive state. And the best of the PrPludes are those in which the rela- tionship of the subject to the object is at its most evanescent-'Brouillards', or 'Les sons et les par- fums', for instance-and the weakest are those whose musical material seems more precisely de- lineated by the title, such as 'Hommage a M. S. Pickwick Esq PPMPC', and 'Minstrels'. Which came first, the title or the piece?

Messiaen's music exhibits similar features-a 'programme' music which is indefinite in relation to its programme, which 'takes off' from the basic idea and does not follow it in any specific way but which nevertheless illumines the whole piece. Consider, for example, the second Piece en Trio from the Livre d'orgue, a piece dedicated to the Trinity-'de Lui, par Lui, pour Lui sont toutes choses'. The relationship is one of mystical numerology, of a type not common since medieval and renaissance music. The idea of the Trinity is expressed through the three contrapuntal parts, and within each part the sequence of events is determined by rational processes which make sure that everything comes from its basic rhythm and note pattern. In the Trois petites liturgies everything, the number of movements and of divisions within movements, of instruments and types of instruments, is determined by the number three. The very word 'Turangalila' has so many meanings (both 'love' and 'death', for instance) that it is impossible to rationalize it. Its meaning must be a subjective one, and ideally it remains so. The weakest moments of the Turanga- lila-Sj~inphoi~ieare those where the relationship of vision to realization becomes over-obvious, the best when it remains secret and mysterious. Needless to say the latter are far in excess of the former.

The elegant japonaiserie of the 'Gagaku' move-ment of Sept Haikai'must be accounted an aesthetic failure in these terms because the subjective inten- tion (actually to produce an imitation of the sound of Gagaku music) has not been sufficiently sub- limated. The very fact that we can say what the music is expressing (as opposed to what we feel it expresses) renders it less rich than Debussy's Jeu.~, where one cannot possibly verbalize what the music is expressing (certainly not its own scenario!). Perhaps this difference is bound up again with the formal procedures of the two composers. Mes-6 q ~ o t e din Geoffrey Brereton, AII Inrroduction to the French Poets, p.204

130

siaen's passion for categorizing is reflected in his essentially static forms. True development comes to him only with difficulty--the 'Developpement de I'amour' promised in the eighth movement of the T~rrangalila-Sj3mnphonieconsists at first only of repetitious juxtapositions of material, and any actual deve!opnient and combination of themes takes a terribly long time to arrive.

On the other hand Debussy, although also con- trasting and juxtaposing blocks of differing types of musical material, is arriving at this result not from the a priori decisions which one tends to think Messiaen makes, but by wa) of the continuous morphology of the musical material. Debussy was the first composer (antedating of course the early works of \Vebern and the atonal period of Schoen- berg) to use a concept of morphological form. This is a form based solely on the demands of its material -a form in \4 hich nothing is fixed but which evolves itself by the continual rnorphology of its own self, constantly dissolving and re-creating its own being. Messiaen's forms are unable to develop in this way. They are essentially stat~c. the music of Gothic cathedrals, of mountains and glaciers. The first piece of the Livrc d'orgue. for example. consists of

three Hindu rhythms, one of which is augmented on each appearance, one of which is diminished, and one of which remains unchanged. Their juxtaposi- tion is also altered on each appearance. This is change within a circumscribed area. The musical material does not gather itself together and the possible relationships are not sparked off one against the other to produce new growths. The serial mirrors of Webern, although static in a sense, like the non-retrogradable rhythms of Messiaen, actually are not, because the dialectical complexities of the serial language create an internal morphology even when all else is still and symmetrical.

Most of this article has been concerned with har- mony, form, and feeling in the music of Debussy and Messiaen. This is because they seem to me to represent the most significant points of contact between the two composers. The possibilities inherent in these connections have not been ex-hausted, nor have such important elements as melody and orchestral writing been more than touched upon. But even within these limits, and notwithstanding thc differences, it seems to me that an investigation of this type can only lead to a deeper understanding of both composers.

Stephen Llialsh

ROGER SMALLEY Those who regularly attend concerts of avant-garde music have for some tinie been familiar with the performing side of Roger Smalley's activities. He is certainly one of the two or three best pianists of contemporarq music at present working in this country, and far and anay the most active, with first English performances of all the Stockhausen piano pieces that have so far been heard in this country, of Kontakte, of Boulez's third sonata. of the piano part in Ives's fourth symphony, and of countless smaller works, already to his credit. He came fourth in the International Competition for Interpreters of Contemporary Music held at Utrecht in 1966, and it ~bould probably be true to say that without his evangelistic energy as a per-former British audiences would not yet have en-countered more than a half of the important new piano music which has come their way in the last two years.

Nevertheless Smalley IS primarily a composer. and his playing is therefore a subsidiary activity which casts light upon but does not determine the nature of his own creat i~e work. The fact that he plays Stockhausen or Boulez more frequently and brilliantly than any of his compatriots is not to be taken as evidence that hi\ own music is in thrall to either of these composers -though it would certainly be strange if it did not show their influence (he in fact studied with Stockhausen in Cologne in 1965-6, and with Boulez in Darmstadt for a fortnight in 1965). His output is so far quite small. hut his music is remarkable for its ~ndependence of obvious

models. And in the most recent pieces there has begun to emerge a positive individuality which may previously have been obstructed by a lack of the performances on which every composer depends if he is to check his ideas against their musical effective- ness and the response they induce in an audience.

Smalley was born at Swinton, near Manchester. in 1943, and went to Leigh Grammar School. From 1961 to 1965 he was at the RCM, and it was there that he received his first formalized training in com- position, studying initially with Racine Fricker and then with John White. As so often happens (think of Haydn teaching Beethoven) the more distin-guished composer proved the less effective teacher and it was only in his work with John White that Smalley began really to develop his creative gift. He and White shared a flat, with the result that their tutorials were informal and free-ranging, and went on-as Smalley points out-more or less con-tinuously. Those who have heard any of White's music will confirm that his seems a lively and sensi- tive artistic personality rather than a specifically original one: but revolutionaries make poor in-structors. and White's unusual breadth of taste must have been ideally suited to draw out Smalley's personality. He introduced his pupil to music which we can now see as seminal: to the symphonies of Liszt and Mahler, to Berlioz's Faust and Romeo, to Messiaen's Turangnlila-Syrtrphonie, to early Schoenberg, and to Busoni. The two men will have discussed this and other music often, so that al- though White was not strictly teaching Smalley to