Messiaen's Messe de la Pentecôte

The Knowledge and Love of God Or Olivier Messiaen and Epistemology Nicholas Adams, University of Edinburgh Preamble One of the tasks of the theologian is arguably to draw attention to what is already going on. And then to say, now listen to it again, but differently. The two forms which this practice takes are variation and juxtaposition. To substantiate this programmatic claim requires some patience. I propose to draw on the music of the twentieth-century French Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen to illustrate this. There is a perceptible move in some quarters of contemporary theology to suggest that forms of knowledge and imagination in theology are not motivated primarily through the association of abstractly formulated propositions, but through practices that find their focal form in liturgy. Put at its simplest, and in the form proposed by John Milbank, it can be said that theology is the ‘speculative’ moment of a practice: the (necessary) moment in which complex relations are ‘idealised’ and made subject to rearrangement and – in its most sophisticated articulations – logic. It seems to me there is much to recommend this view. It permits an attention to historical forms of practice; it takes seriously the historical transformations to which doctrine is subject; it embraces rather than grudgingly admits the risky and provisional nature of doctrine; and it nevertheless insists on the authoritative necessity of such speculation. Without speculation, without theology in this sense, Christian practice is literally unthinkable: it is incapable of representation, and so cannot correct itself. Yet at the same time, there is something odd about this claim, the claim that practice (and its focal form in liturgy) is primary. If this is so, then the trajectory of this thinking should find itself propelled deeper and deeper into liturgy and the spontaneous forms of practice that arise from it. Instead of this, two contradictory tendencies seem to me discernable. On the one hand, Milbank (and perhaps some of his pupils?) propel themselves deeper and deeper into speculation and not liturgy. On the other hand, they both find that they want to speak about music, (and in the case of one of Milbank’s pupils, Catherine Pickstock, particularly Augustine’s De Musica) and baroque forms of ornamentation: ideal accounts of tension and resolution, ornamentation and harmony. Music is notoriously resistant to speculation and idealisation. And it is for this reason that I call these tendencies contradictory. I do not think Milbank is wrong; I just think he does not do justice to the fundamental insight that speculation, while necessary, is secondary (and even subsequent?) to liturgy and the forms of practice which arise from and inform it. I propose in this paper to press his best insights, as they appear to me, to an extreme pitch of intensity. Not only do I want to propel our investigation into the knowledge of God deeper into liturgy, and not only do I want to focus on actual music (and not idealised accounts of it), but I want to present music that is itself variation on liturgy. My example is Messiaen’s Messe de la Pentecôte, a piece of music that took six years of improvisation to find the form in which it was published in 1951. I wish to claim that we are music. And our knowledge is structured like music. The question is: which music? Epistemological paradigms have not so much shifted as splintered in our time. There is too much to choose from, and one of the dangers facing theologians is perhaps that we spend too much of our time deciding which school to adopt: philosophies of the subject, philosophies of language; metaphysics; post-metaphysics; pragmatism; neo-pragmatism. Some may speak of the ‘linguistic turn’ or the decisive advent of ‘postmodern philosophy’, but to imply that these are events on a time line which binds all philosophies into a single linear history is surely misleading. It is now unmanageable for a professional philosopher to be fluent in all of these. For a theologian to feel confident enough to negotiate these complexities, let alone develop criticisms of the different paths, requires an increasingly unacceptable level of generalisation and vagueness. In this paper I do not wish to make the problem of how we know disappear. Instead, I wish to look at different ways of expressing this ‘how’. To most philosophers, the question ‘how do we know?’ invites an exploration of epistemology: the nuts and bolts of perception and judgement. I would like to offer another kind of answer. If one says ‘how do we love?’ it can mean either ‘what are the nuts and bolts of loving?’ or ‘what is the quality of our loving?’. I want to ask this quality question with respect to knowing. ‘How do I know – let me count the ways’. I want to shift away from knowing in general towards particular ways of knowing: this way, and not that. To do this I want to look at the music of Olivier Messiaen, who seems to me to offer some extremely fruitful ways of knowing God. My thesis is that attention to the music of Messiaen provides us with models of knowledge of God that are quite different from much philosophical epistemology. Towards the end I want to re-open the ‘knowing in general’ question and suggest what is at stake in saying that all human knowing is in important respects like music. Speaking like this involves (at least in this paper) quite a lot of risky generalisation and sketchy comment. This is admittedly difficult to justify, but the risk seems worthwhile because the issues at stake in doing this kind of enquiry (which will basically be a short analysis of a difficult piece of music) are themselves very general. In addition, I believe the more patient forms of enquiry, such as detailed disagreement with John Hick (to whose work I make sketchy allusion in part IV) has already been satisfactorily performed by an older generation. I do not conceive the task of this paper to be the repetition of arguments that overviews are dangerous illusions, or that much discussion of epistemology is inappropriate for the discussion of knowing God: these have been adequately discharged. I would need to repeat these tasks only if their fruits were to become disputed by a contemporary audience. For the moment, I assume they are not in dispute. 2 Instead, the task is to take the next step, namely to attempt a different and better description of Christian knowing, by paying attention to certain details. I have tried to do this by looking at a piece of music. The question of the knowledge of God is one small part of the doctrine of God. It addresses two related questions: ‘Who is God?’ and ‘How do we know God?’ It thus encompasses, together, substantive questions about ‘what’ knowledge we have and procedural questions about ‘how’ we have it. The modern period has arguably bequeathed a privileging of the procedural over the substantive: this is seen in forms of thought which address anxieties about how God is known before going on to say who God is. Our period is characterised by the persistence of this epistemological anxiety. At the same time it is marked by attempts at repair, influenced by Karl Barth and Ludwig Wittgenstein. These attempts expose the illusion of thinking that the procedural is independent of the substantive. We already know things before we ask how we know them (Wittgenstein); and we know who God is before we reflect on the sources and implications of that knowledge (Barth). The question of the knowledge of God requires us to attend to substance and procedure simultaneously. The constructive model offered will emphasise the importance of learning from St Paul that the knowledge and love of God belong together. Although this paper will not explicitly develop the theme of friendship, the discussion (or better, illustration) of the knowledge of God is guided by friendship as a model of knowledge rather than that of detached contemplation. I have thus chosen a piece of music that I love. This is intended to go beyond insights from the philosophy of science that knowers are involved in what they know. These insights are correct but inadequate: it is the character of that involvement that matters. God’s friendship, not merely involvement, is what makes all knowing possible. By keeping on speaking of God, even (especially?) in discussions of epistemology, my hope is that instead of falsely seeming the most abstract of doctrines, the doctrine of God might be one that helps us concretely, by teaching us how to be friends. That is, thinking about the knowledge of God does not provide us with new information but provides us with an opportunity to practise the friendship it describes. So: to Messiaen. Messiaen’s explicitly theological music is sometimes narrative, sometimes more experimentally evocative. Messiaen wrote a large number of theologically interesting pieces, some of whose purpose is liturgical, others of whose purpose is concert performance. This paper will look at one of his explicitly liturgical pieces: the Messe de la Pentecôte of 1951.1 What licenses this use of music and knowledge? In a way, I am trying to expand some of Augustine’s observations about knowledge in the Confessions. In book IX, Augustine famously says that knowledge is time remembered. This is well and good (and attractive in many ways): but what matters is the quality of this time remembered. Musical ‘knowledge’, while initially perhaps strange-sounding when juxtaposed with what philosophers normally have meant in the modern era by epistemology, is all about 1 Olivier Messiaen, Messe de la Pentecôte (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1951) 3 this quality of time remembered. Music works through manipulating, with skill and apparent naturalness, the way we perceive sounds in time. I would argue that every piece of music works in the following way: first it gets your attention with some object: ‘listen to this’; then it repeats the object – perhaps contrasting it with a second object: ‘now listen to it again’. Even if a theme is repeated notefor-note, timbre-for-timbre, dynamic for dynamic, it is clearly not identical: simply by virtue of the repetition being the second time you hear it. The second time just is different from the first. In other words, music is about variation (perhaps a better word than repetition). Perhaps the only kind of piece of music which could falsify this would be a piece which constantly advances new themes which have no relation to the last, except by virtue of following it (but even this is a relation for the listener). But such a piece would arguably be very bad music indeed; it would certainly be difficult to listen to for very long. Musical knowledge is then variation. Its basic theme is its claim, the character of its variations constitutes its style, and the way these variations are related to each other constitutes its logic. For this reason, there can be many different forms of logic: imitative counterpoint, fugues, sonatas, rhapsodies, juxtapositional contrast (as perfected by Stravinsky), minimalism and so on. All these forms of logic share the practice of time remembered through themes varied. I am ready, then, to suggest that the knowledge of God is best exemplified through variation. Christian knowledge is variation on themes. But, again, I want to insist that it is not the ‘general’ acknowledgement that knowledge is variation, but the particular variations themselves: these variations. And that means concentrating on particular variations. Instead of choosing Aquinas or Barth I have chosen Messiaen. And my reason for choosing him is principally that the epistemic variations he offers are less familiar to this particular audience, and so throw into sharper relief some of the general points I wish to make about knowledge. There are four main sections: Scripture, Tradition, Natural Theology and Pluralism. Section I: Scripture Some Christians have experimented with the idea that it might be possible to know God independently of what is communicated in Scripture. Messiaen is not one of them. His Messe de la Pentecôte is in five sections: Entrée (les langues de feu); Offertoire (Les choses visibles et invisibles); Consécration (Le don de Sagesse); Communion (Les oiseaux et les sources); Sortie (Le vent de l’Esprit). At the head of each is a short text, which will be expressed and varied musically. Each of the five sections is designed to be played at a particular point in the Eucharist: it was written for the mid-day mass at the church at which he was organist. ‘In 1945, when we started to hold a mid-day mass, and when I had the permission to allow exclusively modern music to be heard, I was offered the possibility to do long stretches of organ-playing. I played either the music of my contemporaries or my own works, where I improvised in ways which were consonant with the major divisions of the Holy Mass: Offertory, Consecration, Communion, and which set in better relief the mysteries of the liturgical year, the graceful 4 expression [grâce] proper to each mystery, the colour, poetry, emotional expression [sentiment] particular to each time and each festival.’2 The texts at the head of each section are, respectively, Introit: ‘Tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them’ (Acts 2:3); Offertory: ‘Things visible and invisible’ (Nicene Creed); Consecration: ‘The Holy Spirit shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you’ (John 14:26); Communion: ‘O ye Waters that be above the firmament, bless ye the Lord; O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord’ (Benedicite); Recession: ‘A mighty rushing wind filled all the house’ (Acts 2:2). Although Messe de la Pentecôte is a meditation on Pentecost, it was not written for the Sunday service that falls on Pentecost, but was played during the messe basse (low mass) held at mid-day. The piece ‘corresponds pretty much exactly with the length of a messe basse and its divisions try to coincide with those of the divine office’.3 One of the most noticeable characteristics of the score of Messe de la Pentecôte is the relationship implied between composer and performance. Messiaen strikes up a relationship between himself and the organist by incorporating a number of different kinds of remark in the score. It contains a lot of information that is not strictly necessary for performance. Messiaen tells the performer, for example, that the first section of the piece consists of Greek rhythms treated with irrational values. Strictly speaking this is redundant, as the score very clearly lays out in musical notation (and even analytical aids to interpreting the rhythm) how the notes are to be played. It is as if Messiaen wishes to involve the performer in his delight at what is going on in the music. This impression is reinforced when further remarks can be seen dotted about the score. At the opening of the second number, after the organ registration has been specified, the composer adds a description of the material that follows: ‘3 Hindu rhythms: tritîya, caturthaka, nihçankalîla – transformed in rhythmic characters: the first does not change, the second augments, the third diminishes’ (page 3, third system). Again, the performer does not really need to know this, any more than she needs to know that certain passages represent birdsong or drops of water, or plainchant neumes or that, in one long section, the rhythms in one part are contracting, while in another part they are simultaneously expanding. Yet all of this is written clearly in the score by the composer, for the delight and knowledge of the player. Above all, however, it is the quotations placed at the head of each part that stand out. Four of them are directly from scripture, with the remaining one from the Nicene creed (which is itself a summary of scripture). Messiaen seems concerned to communicate something to the performer and anyone else who might study the score. Messiaen was an outstanding teacher of composition, as well as one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, and it is certain that his score had students, as well as performers, in mind. Indeed, he wrote an extended musical analysis of Messe de la Pentecôte which is included in the seven volume Treatise on Rhythm, Colour and Ornithology. (It is not the only piece to receive this treatment: others include his Vingt Regards, Quatre Études de Rythme, Livre d’Orgue, Chronochromie, Visions de l’Amen, Harawi, Sept Haïkaï and Trois petites Liturgies.) Messiaen was not 2 Olivier Messiaen, Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d’Ornithologie, Tome IV (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1997), p. 83. All translations are my own. 3 Ibid. 5 only concerned to have his music performed: he also took great satisfaction from it being analysed and discussed critically. In the case of Messe de la Pentecôte, Messiaen places great emphasis on the fact that the pieces are all inspired by, engagements with and interpretations of scripture. It is a good question how it is possible to interpret scripture in music without words. It is difficult to answer this directly (as it is difficult to describe music with words in any case). Showing how theology can be done musically requires looking in detail at the music and trying to understand how it is structured: this is the task of this paper. However, it is possible to draw attention right at the start to the fact that scripture is what the performer encounters, when reading the score to Messe de la Pentecôte, before reading any musical notes. It is in the context of (particular passages of) scripture that the music is intended by the composer to be understood. One might say that scripture is what the music is about and which the music serves. Messe de la Pentecôte is Messiaen’s way of knowing what these passages of scripture mean. Section II: Tradition There are three aspects of tradition that are woven together in the Messe de la Pentecôte, above all in the first number: plainsong, Greek rhythms and twentieth-century music. Messiaen understands himself musically as being formed by these strands in Christian musical tradition. In the first section, the Entrée (introit), when speaking of the harmony of the piece, Messiaen explicitly names Debussy, Bartók and Berg as sources of inspiration, compositional technique and even material4: When speaking of rhythm, Messiaen takes great pleasure in showing how his music relates to the classical Greek metres and feet: Adonic, Pherecratean, Sapphic, and so forth. ‘The piece uses exclusively Greek rhythms. But what tortures they undergo!’ In his discussion of the piece, some of these tortures are laid out diagrammatically to aid analysis: the following is taken from a page of rhythmic analysis5. 4 5 Ibid, p.85. On his relation to Berg, see p.90. Ibid, p.88 (amphimacer is an alternate word for cretic: i.e. a short between two longs) 6 The first music played by the pedal is a good example of the kind of thing Messiaen is drawing attention to: What does Messiaen mean by ‘torturing’ these Greek rhythmic patterns? In Greek poetry, and indeed Northern European poetry in a tradition that pays attention to metre and the different kinds of feet, a line of poetry would conform to certain patterns. For example, Sapphic verse has five feet in the following order: trochee spondee dactyl trochee trochee (daa da | daa daa | daa da da | daa da | daa da). One look at the following from towards the end of the Entrée shows just how much joy Messiaen takes in forcing different metrical patterns into complexities of succession and simultaneity: A word of excuse about irrational values. I have not shied away from prime numbers: if there is a rhythm in 5 (paeon, amphimacer) or in 7 (epitrite): it is enclosed in one and the same irrational group. My irrational values have nothing to do with the pursuit of isochronicity at any price, against which I have combated so hard! They are unconventional [fantaisie], an experiment [expérience] too… perhaps indeed the unhealthy pleasure of playing about with the enemy… In any case, they change nothing of the spirit of Greek rhythms. But there is one sole valid reproach: the piece is difficult of execution: only a very conscientious performer can play it with the requisite precision!6 6 Ibid, p.86 7 Messiaen seems not to be too concerned with the fact that the piece is also difficult to hear for the same reasons: it requires many hearings to be able to follow what is going on. The third element of tradition, in addition to twentieth-century music and Greek rhythm is plainsong. Many twentieth-century composers who have incorporated plainchant into their music have done so either by writing elaborations or harmonisations of actual melodies (most obviously in Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem) or writing original compositions in a particular medieval mode (one can still hear in Anglican cathedrals, from time to time, Charles Wood’s setting of the communion service ‘in the Phrygian mode’, known affectionately as ‘Wood in the Fridge’). With Messiaen it is less obvious. For him, plainchant is a way of putting notes together, and he integrates this ‘way’ into his own melodies. This can be seen for example in number two, the offertory. Note the left-hand part in the following section: Messiaen refers to this as theme B. It is ‘in a somewhat different melodic style: it utilises exclusively the neumes from plainchant – these neumes are endowed with abundant notes of ornamentation (the little notes), like those one hears in certain Arab music – in short, it is written in a melodic mode extending over two octaves, and covering the whole chromatic scale’.7 7 Ibid, pp. 96-7 (neume = note or group of notes; climacus = three or more descending notes; clivis = one note written above another, where the higher is sung first; porrectus = high note, followed by low note, then high note) 8 It would be difficult to describe this kind of composition as quoting from plainchant. Instead, it is probably better to say that plainchant is received and transformed in Messiaen’s melodic language. The other major use of plainchant-like melodic shapes comes in number 3, the consecration, in a passage of monody (i.e. a melody appearing by itself without counterpoint or harmony): Here is Messiaen’s own description of what is taking place: I said that it uses plainchant-like neumes: in fact its first and second period pretty much follow the neumatic layout of the second alleluia in plain-chant (without its versicle), that is sung at the masse at Pentecost. Here is the text of this alleluia up until the first break in the bar:8 Messiaen claims he is ‘using’ plainchant. What does this mean? It is quite clear from his ‘comparison’ above that considerable latitude has been taken in reproducing the shape of the alleluia in question. Although it is not included here, Messiaen goes on to show how the rest of this monody mimics the plainchant that follows. At this juncture it is sufficient to note how freely Messiaen treats the tradition of plainchant in his variation upon it. In a preliminary and sketchy way, we have seen how Messiaen weaves together different aspects of the musical tradition to which he is heir. It is obviously a living tradition, whose liveliness can be gauged by the flexibility and creativity with which Messiaen treats his material. Even something as apparently 8 Ibid, p.107-108 (podatus = one note written above another, where the lower is sung first) 9 solid and definite as plainchant (which, despite its improvisatory character, is invariably sung these days in its ‘final form’ as handed down in written music) is given a new and different life. It requires some creativity on the part of the listener to say that one hears Debussy, or Greek metres or plainchant. Yet they are undoubtedly taken up and integrated into the music that Messiaen presents. To belong to and develop a tradition is precisely to allow it to be heard (faire entendre is one of Messiaen’s favourite phrases) in new and unusual ways. Section III: Natural Theology The origins of the familiar debate about natural theology (i.e. whether God can be known through the investigation by the creature of his creation) probably lie with the late medieval notion of the great books: the book of nature (of creatures), the book of scripture and the book of life (in which is written the names of the damned and the saved). The important point to note about the relationship between these books was that they were always read together: although it would doubtless be possible to find examples of thinkers treating the book of nature independently of the book of scripture, for example, this practice does not seem to have been typical. It is said that it is only with Raymond of Sebond (died c.1436) that reading the book of nature came to be something one could do in an independent way.9 Karl Barth’s strong objections to natural theology seem to be best read as an insistence that the book of nature is illegible when divorced from the book of scripture. He himself does not put it like this, of course. He says rather that it is a mistake to think that human enquiry can precede divine utterance. Nonetheless, he has no objection to human enquiry in response to divine utterance, and this includes investigation of the natural world: reading the book of nature. What would it look like in the late modern period for someone to read the book of nature alongside and in the light of the book of scripture? Questions of this kind often seem to gravitate in the popular sphere to the well-worn ‘science and religion’ kinds of discussion fostered by the Templeton Foundation, and exemplified in writings by Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne. Alternatively, more sophisticated questions sometimes arise about what a recognisably Christian scientific enquiry might look like: when a scientist is a Christian, are her practices noticeably shaped by her religious tradition? These are difficult and obscure questions in need of anthropological fieldwork and description. Messiaen offers a quite different example of a practice of dual readership. Number 4 ‘Communion’ of Messe de la Pentecôte is subtitled ‘birds and springs’. It is customary after communion to recite, and by way of giving thanks [en guise d’action de grâces], the Canticle of Daniel [the Benedicite]. Three young Hebrews, companions of Daniel: Ananias, Misaël, Azarias, have been thrown into a fiery furnace on the orders of King Nebuchadnezzar. Saved by the angel of the Lord, they walk calmly in the middle of the fire without being burned. The three of them improvise a song where they invite all of creation: angels, stars, atmospheric phenomena, beings which inhabit the earth – to unite with each other 9 See E.R. Curtius European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1953, tr. W Trask) 10 in praise of the Lord. One verse is addressed to the water, an other to the birds: ‘springs of water, bless the Lord; birds of the sky, bless the Lord’. It was such a fine opportunity to allow birdsong to be heard, and drops of water in their melodies: I did not let it escape…10 Messiaen allows a number of different birds to be heard in this piece: blackbird, cuckoo, nightingale, lark. Their songs, as heard by Messiaen, are transcribed into the music and transformed. Messiaen is famous for having collected birdsong through transcription, his most famous presentation of it being the Catalogue d’Oiseaux of 1964 for solo piano. Indeed, birdsong has already played a noticeable role in Messe de la Pentecôte in the second piece (Offertory), where blackbird and robin can be heard. Messiaen also introduces the sounds of drops of water into the music: The drops of water are played on the choir on the bourdon 16 (sounds an octave below) and octavin 2 (sounds two octaves higher than notated). Hollow timbre, pianissimo nuance, staccato attacks, all converging to render this liquid articulation, very soft, very precise, of a succession of drops of water. They are real drops of water: notated according to their nature, by listening to the light seepages slip into some emerging groundwater, at the spring in my field in Petichet. They do not fall all from the same height, hence: the melodic movement; they do not fall all at equal intervals, hence: regularity or irregularity of rhythm.11 The invocation of the Benedicite offers Messiaen a wonderful occasion to enact the blessing of the Lord to which birds and water are invited, all in the context of the music accompanying communion, where members of the congregation receive the blessing of God. The birdsong is varied. The first birdsong in the score is not a real bird at all, but the call of an imaginary fowl of the air. The first real birds are the cuckoo and nightingale and then the blackbird, whose names are identified explicitly in the score. Here are the cuckoo, on the left, and then the nightingale (marked ‘rossignol’), on the right : 10 Ibid, p.109. The Benedicite is absent from the original Hebrew of Dan 3, but makes its appearance in the LXX. In Anglican worship it does not normally appear in the Eucharist, but is one of the optional canticles that makes up morning prayer or matins. The verses to which Messiaen draws attention are numbers four and twenty-four respectively and are separated, as he says, by all manner of atmospheric phenomena. 11 Ibid, p.111 11 And here is the blackbird (marked ‘chant de merle’): The birdsong starts with the ornamentations of a blackbird, which pierces the air with joyous and rapid whistles, punctuating the same contours with variations of rhythm. On the bourdon 8 (box closed pianissimo), a cuckoo so distant that its call in descending triad reaches us reduced to a single note (an auditory illusion caused by the distance)…12 The music proceeds by taking up the various melodies, varying them, and using them as jumping-off points for further themes. Where the birdsong is presented in varied melodic forms, the drops of water are developed by combining different rhythms: expanding and contracting the note values in each sequence. Messiaen himself offers a brief illustration of the kinds of rhythmic game he plays here: The rhythms Messiaen describes above look complex on the page, but are relatively simple in conception. 1) is a crushed rhythm expressing two drops falling simultaneously or nearly simultaneously. 2) has three notes in quick succession, representing three drops falling closely one after another; and so on. The difficulty of the rhythmic notation arises not from Messiaen’s own febrile imagination but from the fact that the sounds one hears occurring in nature do not conform to the 12 Ibid, p.111 12 regularities of metre developed in Western music! Messiaen’s music is an attempt to integrate such naturally occurring sounds in a way that can be handled within a (more or less) regular metrical musical system, and yet do justice to their own peculiar structure. This is difficult, and is a difficulty played out in Messiaen’s music. What would it sound like for the fowls of the air and the waters that be above the firmament to bless the Lord? Messiaen’s approach seems to be that they need merely make the sounds they naturally make. They do not need to be prettified in any way. Even in something as highly artificial as a piece of music, there is room for birdsong and drops of water to appear just as themselves. Nonetheless, it would be misleading to suggest that Messiaen simply transcribes these natural sounds and pastes them into his composition like a scrapbook. From even the most cursory analysis of the structure of number 4 in Messe de la Pentecôte it is obvious that a strange context has been provided for these natural sounds. They are given a new home. This is arguably a form of natural theology: it is a way of hearing nature in a particular way: in this case hearing the song of the blackbird in the context of the Benedicite. This song does not remain simply itself, but is heard as the praise of God. Objections to natural theology derive their force from refusing to accept descriptions of natural phenomena as sources of authority for speech about God the creator which compete with or even replace the interpretation of scripture. Birdsong in Messiaen’s Messe de la Pentecôte does not compete with the plainsong-inspired passages or the scriptural quotations any more than it competes with the sound of drops of water. They are heard together. When birdsong makes a reappearance in the final number (Sortie), it is a choir of larks in a burst of sound, set against one of the pieces most sustained rhythmic games, this time trying to stretch and contract time at the same time: The choir of larks (Choeur des alouettes) at the top of the stave sits above chords in the left hand, and a descending pattern in the pedal. Of particular significance are the numbers above the left hand (starting with 23 and descending to 22 at the end of the second bar) and the numbers below the pedal (starting with 4, and increasing to 9 in the last bar). These patterns, one decreasing in value, the other increasing, 13 are extended over the next twenty-three bars: the left hand decreasing to 1, the pedal increasing to 25. These numbers represent the length of each note in semi-quavers: so the first chord in the left hand lasts 23 semi-quavers; the first note in the pedal lasts 4 semi-quavers (hence = a crochet). Messiaen was particularly pleased with this effect: ‘The best moment in the whole piece. It mixes the most lively and the most free things there are: a lark’s song, - with one of the most extremely rigorous rhythmic combinations’.13 The progressive acceleration, by constant uniform augmentation of the speed (obtained here by shorter and shorter chromatic values: with each new value we lose a semi-quaver) – the progressive deceleration, by constant uniform diminution of the speed (obtained here by longer and longer chromatic values: with each new value we gain a semi-quaver) – these two cases are well known in kinematics (part of the mechanics which treat the relations between movement and time), and are designated by the words: uniformly and progressively accelerated or retarded movement. The superimposition of the two movements: acceleration, deceleration, gives us two aspects of the division of time: one positive, one negative.14 There is probably nothing more musically important to Messiaen than time and the way it is divided and expressed. It is thus unsurprising that the climax of Messe de la Pentecôte is an experiment with aural time, which stretches the listening ear to the limits of its concentration. And all with the song of a choir of larks above it. The larks are still singing when we arrive at the end of this progression: the left hand has been reduced to a value of 1, and the pedal is on the point of achieving a length of 25 semi-quavers: 13 14 Ibid, p.115 Ibid, p.116 14 The dynamic markings for this long section are worth noticing: there aren’t any. The section begins fortissimo (see previous page), with ample registration in multiple timbres. The only changed instruction is just towards the end, in the second bar printed above, where the player is instructed to get louder! This is noteworthy because in the rest of the piece there are minutely detailed instructions for how loudly each section is to be played. At this point, the player is encouraged to make as big a sound as possible, and allow the instrument to show off its power to maximum effect. This section is Messiaen’s understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is audible in the transformation of time, and whose praise is sung by larks. Such a theological way of hearing things is utterly typical of Messiaen: one would be hard pressed to find a more characteristic way of composing music, and embodying theological understandings in notes and rhythms. Section IV: Pluralism Two of the most dangerous words in theology are surely ‘sole’ and ‘only’. Christians have been tempted to insist that justification is only by faith or that authority only comes from scripture. With increasing knowledge of the religious traditions of India and China in the nineteenth century the temptation to say that salvation comes only from Christianity arguably became a permanent temptation to Christians trying to interpret passages of scripture like John 14: 6 (‘no-one comes to the Father except by me’). Every temptation begets its contrary: the alarming confidence of those whose overview of reality permits them to say where salvation ‘only’ comes from is mirrored in the equally alarming confidence of those whose overview of reality permits them to use categories like ‘inclusive’, ‘exclusive’ and ‘pluralist’. One needs to know rather a lot in order to have a reliable map for situating different religious traditions with respect to one reality, whose unity is not only plain but also describable. Recent work since the 1980s has made discussions of pluralism quite difficult. Books like Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue of 1981 or the recent volume Christianity in Jewish Terms of 2000 pose a problem for easy taxonomies.15 Is MacIntyre’s account of traditions ‘pluralist’? Do the Jewish contributors to Christianity in Jewish Terms present an account that is ‘inclusivist’? The same question can be posed with equal perplexity to Messiaen’s use of Hindu music in his Roman Catholic Messe de la Pentecôte – which is even earlier. The first thing to notice about Messiaen’s handling of Hindu rhythms in number two (Offertory) of Messe de la Pentecôte is that their context is a reflection and meditation on one phrase from the Nicene creed: things visible and invisible. It is an unequivocally Christian context. Les choses visibles et invisibles! But there is everything in these words! Dimensions known and unknown: from the possible diameter of the universe to that of a proton – durations known 15 Alasdair MacIntyre After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth, 1981); Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs, David Fox Sandmel, Michael A. Signer (eds.) Christianity in Jewish Terms (Oxford: Westview, 2000) 15 and unknown: from the age of galaxies to that of the wave associated with a proton – the spiritual world and the material world, grace and sin, angels and humans – the powers of light and the powers of darkness – the vibrations of the atmosphere, liturgical chant, birdsong, the melody of drops of water, the growling of the beast of the apocalypse – all in all everything that is clear and palpable, and everything which is obscure, mysterious, supernatural, all which exceeds science and reason, all which we cannot discover, all which we will never understand…16 It is into this vision and audition of things visible and invisible that Messiaen introduces three Hindu rhythms: Tritîya, Caturthaka and Nihçankalila. These he translates as ‘The third of Deçi-Tâlas’, ‘the fourth of Deçi-Tâlas’ and ‘daring game, without fear’. Here are the three rhythms17: The second piece – Offertory – in Messe de la Pentecôte is the longest of the five. It is divided into roughly eight sections. (We have already encountered the fourth in the discussion of plainchant in the context of tradition.) Hindu rhythms play a major role in the first and seventh sections, the latter of which is a reprise of the former. The key concept at work in the treatment of the rhythms is ‘interversion’ (i.e. permutation). The same rhythms are combined in different patterns, each one throwing open new contexts of hearing and interpretation of the same material. There are six possible interversions of the three rhythms: The first three are used in section 1; the second three in the reprise in section VII. The variations are not merely external (i.e. changing the order in which they appear) but also internal: their rhythmic values are presented differently. Tritîya stays constant; Caturthaka is augmented; Nihçankalîla is diminished. The relationship between the three notes of each rhythm remains similar in each case: it is just the that values overall are subjected to alteration. This can be illustrated in the case of Caturthaka’s augmentation: 16 17 Messiaen, Traité de Rythme etc., p. 89 Ibid, pp. 89-90 16 Messiaen’s practice here is to combine the interversions (the external ordering of the rhythms) with what he calls the ‘treatment in rhythmic character’ (traitement en personage rythmique). This produces the following transformations (the numbers indicate the length of the note in demisemiquavers): The differences are subtle, and typical of Messiaen’s compositional technique. He does not discuss at length why these particular rhythms and their transformations have been chosen. He does, however, suggest that the overall effect ‘is a hollow mixture, there is no real sound – the whole is pianissimo, mysterious timbre, unreal, a sonority of distant drops of water, at once translucent and opaque…’18 It should be clear from this description that Messiaen is not aiming at any kind of conceptual transmission, but at a musical evocation of the meaning of ‘things visible and invisible’. Given the unequivocally visual nature of these words, Messiaen has set himself a wonderful challenge. (Of course, there is something not quite right about calling the ‘invisible’ something visual.) There are many ways to express knowledge of things visible and invisible. Messiaen’s approach to this mystery is not to try to explain it or give up thinking about it by calling it a paradox, but to show it in music. The mystery is not just there: it is positively encountered (musically, in Messiaen’s case). Many other elements make up number 2 of Messe de la Pentecôte: melodic shapes from Messiaen’s Turangalîla symphony, more complex rhythmic interversions, octotonic modal melodies, shapes developed from plainchant, even an evocation of the beast of the apocalypse, as well as the familiar 18 Ibid, p.91 17 integration of birdsong (this time blackbird and robin). They are framed, however, by the curious Hindu rhythms. What role do Hindu rhythms play in Messiaen’s music here, and is it important that they are Hindu (rather than, say, Arabic or Chinese)? It is tempting to hear Messiaen’s treatment in the light of British experiments with Indian music like that of George Harrison (fifteen years after the composition of Messe de la Pentecôte), or later new-age fascination with the world of gurus and karma. This is, however, almost certainly inappropriate in Messiaen’s case. Messiaen’s interest seems overwhelmingly musical, and in particular rhythmic. He does not link Hinduism with ‘mystery’ in any obvious or direct way. The mystery of the musical evocation lies not in the fact that the rhythms are Hindu so much as the total effect of transforming their patterns, and above all the registration (which, being bourdon and flute, can hardly be said to be peculiarly Hindu). It is as if Messiaen happened upon these rhythms and, having integrated them into his musical language, put them to good use in this particular piece of music. They have provided him with additional metrical feet (which is already impressively stocked with Greek rhythms, as we have already seen) and further resources for rhythmic transformation. Messiaen offers an interesting perspective on interfaith dialogue or, more exactly, translation from one language to another. Messiaen only has a use for Hindu musical language in so far as it becomes part of his existing usable language. The rhythms are not merely ‘quoted’ (any more than the birdsong discussed in the previous section) but are made part of the whole, to whose character they contribute in turn, so that the whole itself is changed by their addition. Messiaen’s encounter with Indian music is something like ‘Hindu music in Roman Catholic Terms’, to borrow a turn of phrase from the recent engagement with Christianity by a number of prominent Jewish thinkers. Hindu rhythms are not a ‘foreign object’ in an otherwise Western scheme. They are subjected to transformations in the same way as Greek metre or plainchant or birdsong. Because they become part of Messiaen’s music, they are heard differently and are not allowed to remain themselves: they are interpreted. The form this interpretation takes is transformation, according to a particular style of making music which, in this case, is exemplified in music for a Roman Catholic mass. This is not to say they are ‘Christianised’ so much as to suggest they are integrated into a language used to express Christian ways of hearing the world. Is this an imperial Christian takeover of rhythms from another religious tradition? Not really, because the resulting music can only with doubtful sense be described as ‘Christian’. Olivier Messiaen, the composer, is unequivocally Christian, and the music is undoubtedly the music of Olivier Messiaen. But it is not clear what advances would be made by saying that the music is itself Christian. It is music put to Christian purposes (after all, it is music for a mass). But it could be put to other purposes, such as a concert performance, or the score could be consigned to a museum (as happens with many other artefacts put to Christian purposes, such as medieval triptychs or Bach’s Passions). Perhaps one way to put it would be to say that the music is Christian in so far as its language is transformed by its encounter with scripture, and in so far as it serves scripture’s description of the world. 18 The Hindu rhythms Tritîya, Caturthaka and Nihçankalîla are certainly transformed by being heard in the context of the Nicene creed. But by the same token, the word ‘mystery’ is transformed by being heard in the context of God’s being. That is to say, Christian musical language is not a particular musical language, but (many different kinds of) music put to recognisably Christian purposes, such as liturgical worship. It could be said equally that Christian worship is not a particular liturgical language, but (many different kinds of) worship put to recognisably Christian ends: namely worship of God (rather than something else). Of course, the liturgical form of the Eucharist is recognisable as a peculiarly Christian pattern of worship, but it could equally be radically non-Christian if it were enacted as a parody in an anti-Christian play, for example. In short, it is worth distinguishing between Christian as a stylistic predicate and Christian as a theologically significant description. Messiaen’s music is not stylistically Christian (it would be better described as twentieth-century French music), but Messe de la Pentecôte is without doubt a major work of Christian theology, musically speaking. It is possible to be more precise in the use of these categories, and better categories can be developed. This vocabulary is sufficient, however, to say that the rhythms are stylistically Hindu and, in their use here, theologically Christian. That is: they are not being used for Hindu dance or Hindu worship of Hindu deities, but for expression of the divine mystery as expressed in the Nicene creed and interpreted by Olivier Messiaen, a French Roman Catholic composer, in music for the mass. In the wake of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and the authors of Christianity in Jewish Terms, it makes less and less sense to try to gain an overview of how traditions relate to one another. Rather, it seems desirable to pay as much attention as possible to the particular ways that different traditions are heard (and even used) by each other, and then, perhaps, to attempt some kind of appropriate generalisation about what, if anything, these different ways share with each other. That, at least, is what this section has tried to do in a preliminary way with one small part of Messiaen’s Messe de la Pentecôte. Conclusion The thesis of this paper has one constant thread. Christian knowledge of God is above all the knowledge and love of God. The form its knowledge takes is reception and transformation. It receives positive data, from a bewildering variety of sources, and transforms them according to a particular style of knowing: these are transmitted in turn. If one could specify what this ‘particular style of knowing’ is in words, one would have succeeded in describing Christian knowledge of God. This is, however, difficult. For this reason I have chosen to examine, in a little detail, one example of a particular way of knowing God and expressing this knowledge musically. This may not work for all pieces of music by Christians. Because of the detailed notes Olivier Messiaen left concerning his Messe de la Pentecôte, however, it seems to work tolerably well in this case. Can anything in general be said about epistemology in the light of this discussion? Perhaps not very much, but at least this: Christian knowing is a style of knowing, that works the way music works, by receiving something and varying it: and one well-worn way to describe this is as the knowledge and love of God. 19