Do the works of Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez and Tristan Murail support or contradict the notion of “rupture” in twentieth-century French music? MUSI30058 Candidate No. 61496 Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of BA with Honours in Music in the University of Bristol Contents: Acknowledgements Page 3 Abstract Page 4 Chapter I — An aesthetic “rupture” and its history Page 5 Chapter II — Messiaen and Murail Page 14 Chapter III — Boulez and Murail Page 22 Conclusion — An aesthetic “rupture” of little substance Page 32 Bibliography Page 34 Appendix A — Tables Page 39 Appendix B — Score excerpts Page 45 2 Acknowledgements I would like to express my fulsome gratitude to Professor Katharine Ellis, whose supervision and guidance has never been short of incredibly helpful and encouraging. I would also like to thank Raymond Clarke, whose commitment and belief in me has never wavered. My thanks go to Dr. Michael Ellison for introducing me to the work of Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey, and to Dr. Pauline Fairclough for being an outstanding lecturer and inspiring me to pursue further academic studies. I owe the privilege of writing this dissertation to the individuals in my life who helped me find my way here. I would first like to thank my grandmother Angela, who has never faltered as an inspirational and loving figure. Were it not for her, I would not have had the opportunity to go on pilgrimage to Lourdes in 2006, an experience which I believe to this day had an immensely positive impact on my life. It was there that I met James Gresty, who became my A-level music teacher in 2011. James’ teaching made analysis both fun and exciting, and in lending me his personal copy of Paul Griffiths’ Modern Music, he introduced me to the world of music academia. I would like to thank him now for his amazing work in inspiring me and many others in their musical pursuits. Perhaps the greatest thanks is due to my mum and dad, Donna and Guy. If it weren’t for my mum, I would not have been lucky enough to have the extent of support I did as a child. Had they not been perceptive of my musical potential, I would not have started taking piano lessons. Were it not for my dad’s incredible selflessness and loving support at all times, I would not have had as comfortable and fulfilling a life and time at the University of Bristol. I finish these acknowledgments with one final anecdote: In the summer of 2012, whilst on holiday with family in rural Cornwall, my dad and I went for an evening walk. The birds were singing and I wondered aloud whether any composer had written music resembling birdsong. His reply prompted a fascination which in the past four years has developed into a musical passion… “Olivier Messiaen!” 3 Abstract This study seeks to determine the extent to which selected works by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), and Tristan Murail (b. 1947) support or contradict the notion of “rupture” in the Parisian musical establishment during the twentieth century. Aesthetic and political considerations of the historical narrative frame comparative analyses of Murail’s Territoires de l’oubli (1977) to the ethos of Messiaen’s Sept haïkaï (1962) and Couleurs de la cité celeste (1963), and to the technique of Boulez’s Structures II for two pianos (1956-61). It is concluded that Messiaen’s influence on Murail was largely one of ethos and not technique. It is determined that Boulez and Murail share similarities in their approaches to form and the manipulation of piano sonority and resonance. It is thus considered that their aesthetic divide is of little substance to the content of their music. 4 Chapter I — An aesthetic “rupture” and its history A prevalent notion in twentieth-century musicological discourse is that of “rupture” in music caused by contemporary research and composition practices. This argument is of international scope, affecting both the listening public and musical establishments the world over. The following study therefore concerns a localised reading of the “rupture” concept, focusing on the Parisian musical establishment from the time of the 1940-44 occupation to the founding of the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (henceforth IRCAM) in 1977. Three composers are central to this discussion, Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) and Tristan Murail (b. 1947). It can be argued that these composers construct an aesthetic spectrum of twentieth-century French composition out of which this localised “rupture” emerged. In his nurturing role as teacher to both younger composers, Messiaen holds the central position in this spectrum. With polarised aesthetic values, Boulez and Murail take their positions on the spectrum either side of Messiaen. In order for a discussion of the degree to which opposing aesthetic values resulted in a “rupture” to yield any currency, the historical narrative must be explored. ◆ Conscripted into the French army, Messiaen served in the Second World War until his capture in May 1940. Out of this imprisonment came the seminal Quatuor pour la fin du temps, premièred in the Silesian cold of Stalag VIIIA in Görlitz on 15 January 1941. Our narrative, however, can be traced to events prior to Messiaen’s containment. In her interview with Peter Hill, Yvonne Loriod, one of the leading authorities on Messiaen’s piano music and the composer’s second wife, shares an anecdote of great historical significance. Messiaen had been taken prisoner in France… he was transported to Germany with thousands of French soldiers, all in cattle trucks. They suffered for several days without water or food until finally… water was distributed… thousands of soldiers literally fought each other in order to get a drink of water. Messiaen was seated in a little courtyard and he began to take out of his pocket a score, some music, which he began to read. There was one other man, also seated, also reading, who’d refused to join in this struggle for water and his name was Guy-Bernard Delapierre… the two men 5 got talking… ‘Look, we are brothers, because we have placed the finer things of life above this struggle for earthly food’… Yvonne Loriod, 9 January 19931 Upon his repatriation to occupied France in the spring of 1941, Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire. Paul McNulty recognises that during the occupation, ‘the Nazi’s cultural policy was to obliterate serialism and reinstate the great German masterworks’, in addition to imposing restrictions on Conservatoire teaching practices.2 The country remained occupied for the first year of Boulez and Loriod’s study in Messiaen’s class between 1943-47, but their teacher found ways in which twentieth-century works could be discussed. Unbeknownst to Messiaen at the time of their meeting, Delapierre had given him his name and address, and once they were both repatriated they became good friends.3 As a result of this connection, Loriod explains that Delapierre ‘made his drawing room available to the young people who at that time were anxious to hear contemporary music, which was completely forbidden at the Conservatoire’. 4 These sessions featured analyses of works by Bartók, Berg, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, as well as some of Messiaen’s own music.5 Peter Heyworth suggests these sessions held great significance for Boulez, ‘they opened a new realm, virtually unrepresented in the concerts of Paris. For the first time, he perceived where his musical ancestry lay.’6 The class referred to themselves as ‘les flèches’, Loriod explaining that ‘like all young people, we thought we were going to revolutionize the world’.7 Throughout Messiaen’s teaching career there was no other student who rivalled the force of Boulez’s revolution, nor the consequences of it. The liberation of France from Nazi occupation signified the liberation of its culture. Imposed restrictions on art were lifted, and the musical establishment responded in a way it saw fit. As one 1 Peter Hill, ‘Interview with Yvonne Loriod’ in Peter Hill, ed., The Messiaen Companion (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), 290-291 2 Paul McNulty, ‘Messiaen’s journey towards asceticism’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 65 3 Hill, The Messiaen Companion, 291 4 ibid. 5 Peter Heyworth, ‘The first fifty years’ in William Glock, ed., Pierre Boulez — A Symposium (London: Eulenburg Books, 1986), 9 6 ibid. 7 Hill, The Messiaen Companion, 291 6 of the most highly esteemed musical figures before the occupation, Igor Stravinsky’s music received an immediate reawakening. Heyworth notes that he was ‘still regarded as an essential part of French music’, and that it was his neoclassical works in particular that ‘provided the basis of a new French academicism.’8 No teacher represents this new academic approach better than Nadia Boulanger, and her attitudes are reflective of the wider musical establishment in the 1940s and 1950s. Caroline Potter asserts that Boulanger opposed serialist practices, suggesting that one should not tamper with Western harmony for it had its basis in nature.9 One of Boulanger’s pupils recalled that ‘her teaching methods were very much based on her absolute knowledge of Stravinsky’.10 Boulez found this reversion into the pre-war neoclassical taste to be culturally retrograde. With Messiaen and his classmates, he had studied Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, a work which he believed offered more content and value than the entire neoclassical period with which the establishment was obsessed. As an act of protest, the youthful composer and his like-minded colleagues heckled the European première of Stravinsky’s Danses concertantes. According to Heyworth, this action ‘was an announcement… that the future would move in quite a different direction — and that it would do so under the leadership of Boulez.’11 René Leibowitz was an important figure in Boulez’s development, if only for the young composer’s rejection of him. McNulty contends that Leibowitz’s arrival in Paris in 1948 ‘heralded the renaissance of serialism… and the waning of neoclassicism.’12 Boulez was drawn to Leibowitz solely because of his study with Schoenberg, as Messiaen’s teaching did not go into any depth of serial construction. This was a thirst which Boulez hoped Leibowitz could satisfy. However, McNulty observes the teacher’s downfall, ‘he took a rigidly academic approach and seemed to offer no thoughts on how serial music could continue to evolve’.13 Thus, Leibowitz held almost as little relevance to Boulez as the establishment he perceived to be clinging to the past; if one bears no thought for artistic progress, one consigns oneself to a footnote in history. 8 Heyworth, Pierre Boulez, 6 9 Caroline Potter, ‘Nadia Boulanger as Teacher’ in Nadia and Lili Boulanger (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2006), 137 10 Cited in Potter, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, 139, no original source given. 11 Heyworth, Pierre Boulez, 6 12 McNulty, Messiaen Studies, 64 13 ibid., 67 7 Ironically, Messiaen contributed more to the evolution of serialist language than Leibowitz. Until the composition of Mode de valeurs et d’intensités (1949), the first of the Quatre Études de rhythme, Boulez had not been particularly enthused by Messiaen’s music. His remarks on the Turangalîla-symphonie (1946-48) had resulted in a personal rift between the two composers, as Boulez publicly declared passages of it to be nothing more than ‘brothel music’.14 In his view, Turangalîla squandered an opportunity for originality and instead provided an orgiastic spectacle. In contrast, Mode de valeurs was exemplary in its originality, applying the technique of the series to other parameters such as rhythm, dynamics, and timbre (articulation). It is well known that Messiaen was gifted with chromesthesia, a psychological condition whereby sounds evoke a colour response in the individual. The construction of his chords owes much to this phenomenon, and it reached an apex of formal importance in Couleurs de la cité céleste (1963). Messiaen’s fundamental criticism of serialism was its inability to generate such responses, and he applied this equally to his étude. Nevertheless, the work bestowed upon Messiaen an avant-garde prestige which Peter Hill suggests led to reconciliation with Boulez.15 Hill also identifies the profound impact the work had on the new generation of composers, whereby ‘all roads seemed to lead to Messiaen.’16 The work served Boulez as a model for Structures Ia, the first piece in the first book of Structures for two pianos (1951-52), the totally serialised construction of which Heyworth has considered ‘a milestone in post-war music.’17 Therefore, Mode de valeurs provided a catalyst for the progression of the avant-garde in spite of its composer’s reservations. The title of Structures invites parallels to structuralist thinking, and this connection has been explored by Jonathan Goldman. A structuralist approach to music constitutes a language whereby objects only have value through the relevant difference they hold to other objects in the same system, an approach to which Mode de valeurs and Structures Ia both conform.18 Both composers observed inherent flaws in the method, and responded in accordance with their respective aesthetic judgments. The period of technical unity between former teacher and student was thus 14 Heyworth, Pierre Boulez, 6 15 Peter Hill, ‘Messiaen recorded: the Quatre Études de rhythme’ in Christopher Dingle and Nigel Simeone, eds., Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2007), 90 16 ibid. 17 Heyworth, Pierre Boulez, 14 18 Jonathan Goldman, ‘Introduction’ in The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 19 8 short-lived. On one hand, Messiaen found stylistic refuge in ornithological study, producing works such as Réveil des oiseaux (1953) and the comprehensive piano cycle Catalogue d’oiseaux (1956-58). On the other hand, Boulez retreated only as far as he needed in order to consider alternative directions in which serialism could progress. The total organisation of horizontal parameters such as melody and rhythm rendered the vertical construction of harmony impossible in Structures Ia. As the composer reflects in his conversations with Célestin Deliège, refined melodic lines in his early work were paired with ‘harmonic relationships that not only lacked refinement but were the result of pure chance.’19 The composer’s approach to the second book of Structures (1956-61) therefore displays a greater concern for the diagonal unity of melodic and harmonic parameters. To state the obvious, experimental works such as Mode de valeurs and Structures Ia did not conform to the aesthetic tastes of the establishment and were not met with approval. In one of many polemic outbursts, Boulez smears the Paris Conservatoire’s ‘wastes — and wastings’, condemning the likes of Boulanger and all those who championed a neoclassical aesthetic.20 Understandably, the composer sought an environment in which his ideas would not be actively discouraged and excluded from concert programmes. Germany offered this environment in Darmstadt, the veritable centre for avant-garde music in the mid-twentieth century. Paul Griffiths and G.W. Hopkins suggest that the première of Boulez’s Second Piano Sonata which took place there in 1952 marked ‘the first significant spreading of Boulez’s name abroad.’21 His growing popularity at Darmstadt thus coincided with the completion of the first book of Structures, and his appointment as a teacher in the prestigious summer school from 1954-56 gave him a platform to share and develop the revised approach to serialism inherent in the indeterminate procedures of the Third Piano Sonata (1955-57/63) and the second book of Structures. It is important to emphasise that his influence at Darmstadt did not translate to Paris. This idea is substantiated by Heyworth’s astute observation, ‘Boulez might be a hero in Darmstadt, but in Paris he was still 19 Pierre Boulez & Célestin Deliège, ‘The concept of harmony’ in Pierre Boulez — Conversations with Célestin Deliège (London: Eulenburg Books, 1976), 90 20 Pierre Boulez, ‘Olivier Messiaen’ in Jean-Jacques Nattiez, ed., Orientations, trans. by Martin Cooper (London, Faber and Faber, 1986), 404 21 Paul Griffiths & G.W. Hopkins, ‘Pierre Boulez’, New Grove Online, <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/article/grove/music/03708>, accessed 23/01/16 9 regarded as a fanatic’.22 McNulty has likened Darmstadt to the ‘Mecca for the next generation of composers’, and his contention holds some potency.23 One can infer a hostile attitude towards contemporary music in all European establishments from this suggestion, whereby a composer would have to undertake a pilgrimage to receive a truly contemporary education. In this reading of Darmstadt as Mecca, the position of Boulez would be that of prophet. The year 1954 saw Boulez establish the Domaine Musical in Paris, prompted by ‘the desire to make known to the world what was going on’ in contemporary music.24 With its own performers, the society put on annual seasons of contemporary music, organised and programmed by Boulez according to his personal aesthetic tastes. The establishment’s opposition to the Domaine Musical was in no way discreet. The society received no state funding until 1959 (and did so only then because it acquired use of a state-owned theatre), and for the first five seasons it was not broadcast on French Radio. Heyworth notes that feeling against Boulez ‘was so strong that the musical director of the French Radio… formally forbade a critic to interview him on the air.’25 The society relied instead on the support of Suzanne Tézenas, a patron held in high esteem by wealthy art aficionados. Marilyn Nonken reinforces the importance of Tézenas’ patronage, stating that ‘her public endorsement conferred on Boulez and his selected concert repertoire a powerful cultural currency.’26 Furthermore, the society ‘successfully asserted a canon of twentieth century masterworks and established a hierarchy of emerging composers.’27 ‘Were the Domaine Musical the door to fame,’ Nonken writes, ‘Boulez would be the key-master.’28 From here on his influence extended overseas, and the music administrator of the BBC Proms, William Glock, saw Boulez as ‘a man of brilliance and imagination’.29 It was Glock who invited Boulez to conduct at the Proms for the first time in 1965. From then until 1972, Boulez 22 Heyworth, Pierre Boulez, 15 23 McNulty, Messiaen Studies, 64 24 Pierre Boulez & Pierre-Michel Menger, Jonathan W. Bernard (trans.), ‘From the Domaine Musical to IRCAM’ in Perspectives of New Music, vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter 1990), 8 25 Heyworth, Pierre Boulez, 16 26 Marilyn Nonken, ‘The first generation’ in The Spectral Piano: From Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy to the Digital Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 73 27 ibid. 28 ibid., 74 29 William Glock, ‘With Boulez at the BBC’ in Pierre Boulez, 232 10 presented programmes consisting of nothing but twentieth-century and contemporary music. Glock identifies that the audience for each concert season was in excess of one hundred million, justifying his assertion that the influence of the Proms was very powerful.30 The administrator states that Boulez ‘threw all his energy into an effort to provoke some discussion with the audience.’31 The content of these discussions, in addition to those he had provoked in the Domaine Musical, was limited to music that corresponded with Boulez’s aesthetic. His lofty platform and cultural prestige thus fuelled a politics of exclusion, Boulez being intent on pursuing his own aims for the future of contemporary music. Caroline Rae argues the extent to which Boulez’s taste resulted in the exclusion of composers from the international stage. Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana are composers whose work enjoyed a national reputation but struggled to transcend the border. Although they developed ‘an innovative and forward-looking approach, independent of the preoccupations of their contemporaries of Darmstadt’, Rae observes that the two composers received no commissions or representation in the Domaine Musical concerts.32 As a challenge to serialist practice, Ohana set up Le Groupe musical le Zodiaque in 1947. According to Rae, the group ‘saw themselves as crusading knights, defending freedom of expression from what they considered to be the tyranny of serialism.’33 Dutilleux was not a member, preferring to remain independent from aesthetic groups and their associated skirmishes. The composer believed serialism to be an impasse, and expressed his distaste for the reactionary rejection it received from composers of le Zodiaque.34 Ohana’s concern was passionate, deeming serialism to be ‘as intimidating and terrifying as the propaganda systems of the Nazis’.35 However, in his strong relationship with French Radio and a developing international reputation in the United States, Dutilleux enjoyed a greater platform than Ohana. In mind of this, complex emotional and personal issues are revealed in their responses to serialism and exclusionist politics. Dutilleux identified with the aesthetic ‘terrorism’ that arose from 30 Glock, Pierre Boulez, 232 31 ibid., 238 32 Caroline Rae, ‘Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone?’ in Tempo, No. 212 (April 2000), 22 33 ibid., 24 34 Roger Nichols, Henri Dutilleux: Music — Mystery and Memory (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003), 39 35 Pierre Ancelin, ‘Entretien avec Maurice Ohana’, in Lettres françaises (September 1964), cited in Rae, ‘Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone?’, 24 11 the serialist practice, whereby ‘if you didn’t subscribe to this doctrine you didn’t exist’.36 However, he suffered less from exclusionist politics than Ohana and thus retained a positive outlook, ’it called for a response through music, not through manifestos.’37 The response of Tristan Murail and Gèrard Grisey to serialism shares a striking similarity to that of Boulez to neoclassicism two decades previously. In 1973, Murail co-founded the Ensemble L’Itinéraire with the intention, as he explains in his interview with Ronald Bruce Smith, ‘to propose another approach towards music… everything that would not be considered establishment.’38 This announcement highlights the significant overhaul the musical establishment had undergone in twenty years. As a student and for the first decade of his career, Boulez was considered a dangerous and erratic rebel. Yet for the next generation of composers, he had overwritten the establishment and become its figurehead. With support from their contemporaries, Murail and Grisey hoped to topple the establishment’s serialist mantle, just as Boulez had done with neoclassicism before them. The suggestion that the establishment conferred on Boulez an omnipotent cultural status is substantiated by his founding of the government-funded IRCAM in 1977, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain two years previously. In his conversation with Pierre-Michel Menger, Boulez states his reasoning for founding IRCAM, ’remembering on the one hand the ignorance and the inertia of French institutions against which I fought… I see my role above all as effort to keep doors open.’39 However, IRCAM was at first an inhospitable environment for musicians like Murail, the composer likening the first summer session he attended in 1980 to an armistice between Boulezian aesthetics and L’Itinéraire.40 The composer suggests this truce was a historic conjunction between the spectral movement he represented and the establishment, ‘I think we needed them and, in a way, they needed us.’41 It is unquestionable that the result of aesthetic and political marginalisation undertaken by Boulez has affected the overall conception of twentieth-century French music. With his forceful 36 Nichols, Henri Dutilleux, 39 37 ibid. 38 Ronald Bruce Smith, ‘An Interview with Tristan Murail’ in Computer Music Journal, vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2000), 11 39 Boulez & Menger, ‘From the Domaine Musical to IRCAM’, 14 40 Smith, ‘An Interview with Tristan Murail’, 12 41 ibid., 13 12 persona, Boulez asserted himself as the arbiter of progressive musical taste. His rebellion is conveniently justified by the 1940-44 occupation, and his reading of history is one that positions him as the infallible centre. He justifies himself whilst criticising groups with similar aims to le Zodiaque and L’Itinéraire, ‘To adopt a strongly critical position, as we did in 1945, is one thing; to write music against other music is quite another. If you set as your goal a reaction against the mannerisms of a generation, all you will bring about is a new mannerism.’42 The composer’s suggestion that his generation’s rejection of neoclassicism was not reactionary is simply absurd. It proposes an historical narrative whereby if one rejected Boulez and serialism then they, like Leibowitz before them, would be confined to an out-dated compositional mode. This approach to history is entirely disproven by both Messiaen’s continued success in France and abroad in the wake of his experimental period, and by the momentum with which Murail and the L’Itinéraire composers overtook Boulez as the decision-makers for the future of French music. 42 Boulez & Menger, ‘From the Domaine Musical to IRCAM’, 13 13 Chapter II — Messiaen and Murail Tristan Murail attended Messiaen’s composition class at the Paris Conservatoire from 1967-1972. The composer has alluded to the marginalisation of practices that did not correspond to Boulez-approved aesthetics, the effect of which was so strong that for Murail and his colleagues, ‘Messiaen’s classes… [were] kind of a shock for most of us, because we saw there were possibilities other than serialism.’1 According to Marilyn Nonken, the most influential of these possibilities was that ‘the form of a musical composition could be based on progressions of harmonic-timbral complexes and did not have to be defined primarily by pitch’, an approach which Messiaen had used in Sept haïkaï (1962) and Couleurs de la cité céleste (1963).2 Manifestations of ‘harmonic-timbral complexes’ thus form the basis for comparative analyses of these works to Murail’s Territoires de l’oubli (1977). However, stark differences can be observed in their execution between master and pupil. Boulez has levelled the criticism that Messiaen ‘does not compose, he juxtaposes’, and his judgment can be applied to the composer’s technique in Sept haïkaï and Couleurs.3 This juxtapositional approach is set in opposition to the evolutionary procedures Murail employs. Julian Anderson substantiates this view of Murail’s compositional process, identifying that in Ethers (1978), ‘the form of the music is simply the evolution of its material.’4 It can be inferred from this opposition that their approaches to sonority and resonance follow a similar trajectory. Where timbral effects in Sept haïkaï and Couleurs predominantly function to define oppositions between small formal units, the form of Territoires is inextricably tied to the continual timbral development of piano resonance. The following analysis therefore questions the assumption inherent in the historical narrative whereby Murail’s technique and aesthetic is primarily indebted to Messiaen. Throughout all the analyses, scientific pitch notation has been used. Where relevant to the analysis 1 ‘Tristan Murail Lecture (an Excerpt)’, <www.ocnmh.cz/days2003_lectures_murail.htm>, cited in Marilyn Nonken, ‘The first generation’ in The Spectral Piano: From Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy to the Digital Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 71 2 Nonken, The Spectral Piano, 71 3 Pierre Boulez, ‘Propositions’, in Relevés d’apprenti (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966), 68, cited in Stefan Keym, ‘’The art of the most intensive contrast’: Olivier Messiaen’s mosaic form up to its apotheosis in Saint François d’Assise’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 190 4 Julian Anderson & Tristan Murail, ‘In Harmony. Julian Anderson Introduces the Music and Ideas of Tristan Murail’, in The Musical Times, vol. 134, No. 1804 (June 1993), 322 14 of Territoires, time codes corresponding to Marilyn Nonken’s recording serve to pin point specific moments of timbral development in the work’s absence of bar numbers.5 ◆ Mode de valeurs et d’intensités (1949) was rejected by Messiaen because its rigid organisation rendered it unable to engage with his colour-hearing syanesthesia and produce a response. His adoption of a form based on juxtaposition as opposed to organic evolution is a consequence of similar considerations. Couleurs de la cité céleste is a prime example of this approach, a single-movement work constructed from the constant juxtaposition of material and its associated colour responses. It is important to understand the composer’s preference for juxtaposition over continual development, and an anecdote shared by Peter Hill provides some explanation. In the process of recording the complete piano works under Messiaen’s supervision, Hill learnt that ‘overpedalling was the vice in pianists he most detested, with inappropriate blurring of sounds causing him real distress.’6 It can be inferred that the blurring of sounds simultaneously blurred the colour responses he preferred to keep pure and distinct. His personal dislike for blurring on a local level thus frames his disinterest in the continual evolution of organic form. Messiaen’s juxtapositional approach has been likened to a mosaic in the academic literature. The inspiration for his ‘mosaic form’ has been attributed to the distribution of colour in stained-glass windows, which Madeleine Hsu observes reflect ‘man’s ability to create a feast of light and color, a perfect fusion of art and nature.’7 The harmonic-timbral complexes of Couleurs thus exist as individual units or modules which do not so much develop as change suddenly and with varying degrees of contrast. Messiaen explains in the work’s preface, ‘The form of this work depends entirely on colours… the work does not end — having never really begun: it turns on 5 Tristan Murail. The Complete Piano Music. Recorded 2003. Metier Sound & Vision. MSV CD92097. 2005. 2 compact discs. Disc 1, track 4. Marilyn Nonken. 6 Peter Hill, ‘Messiaen recorded: the Quatre Études de rhythme’ in Christopher Dingle and Nigel Simeone, eds., Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2007), 89 7 Madeleine Hsu, ‘Messiaen in His Time’ in Olivier Messiaen, the Musical Mediator (London: Associated University Presses, 1996), 23 15 itself, interlacing its temporal blocks, like the rose window of a cathedral with its flamboyant and invisible colours’.8 So vivid for him were his colour responses, Messiaen was convinced that he could convey them to the listening public.9 Much to the composer’s disappointment, however, research has consistently indicated that colour-hearing responses are unique to each synaesthete, and Jonathan W. Bernard has asserted that ‘it is hardly likely that anyone else will ever be able to see the colors that Messiaen does’.10 It can be concluded from this that the construction of the harmonic-timbral complexes used in Couleurs, particularly of those chords with descriptive colour labels, is determined solely by their individualised response for the composer. In this reading, Messiaen’s colour-chords defy a harmonic deconstruction. His students might draw inspiration from the unique pitch content and the timbral distribution of his colour-chords, but the core being of the construct is lost on them. Bernard substantiates the futility of such an approach, ‘no external logic has operated to construct the system… His synaesthesia… is involuntary, the pairings of colours with sounds out of his control.’11 Table 2.1 illustrates the sheer complexity of his colour responses, whereby the slightest change in pitch content could produce an entirely different shade of the same response or even produce analogous colours. The analytical task of deciphering the independent contribution of each pitch, or combinations thereof, to each colour-chord is beyond the scope of reasonable analysis. Example 2.1 shows two colour-chords with predominantly complementary colour responses. Whilst surface observations could be made between their construction, the futility of such an approach must be stressed. Such basic comparisons of pitch structure are insufficient in grasping even a basic conception of Messiaen’s synaesthesia. For his students, the relationship of colour to form in Messiaen’s music is purely one of ethos. 8 Olivier Messiaen, Couleurs de la cité céleste (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1966), cited with English translation in Keym, Messiaen Studies, 194 9 Olivier Messiaen, platform discussion following European premiere of Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité, 11 June 1972, cited in Jonathan W. Bernard, ‘Colour’ in Peter Hill, ed., The Messiaen Companion (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), 203 10 Jonathan W. Bernard, ‘Messiaen’s Syanesthesia: The Correspondence between Color and Sound Structure in His Music’ in Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall 1986), 42 11 ibid., 44 16 Ex. 2.1— Messiaen — Couleurs de la cité céleste — Figure 24 — colour-chords From Revéil des oiseaux (1953) and on, Messiaen’s conception of the piano was intrinsically linked to its functionality for the depiction of birdsong. For example, the majority of the piano material in Sept haïkaï serves this purpose. Five piano cadenzas are committed to evoking a great variety of Japanese birds in movements III and VI. Jeremy Thurlow has observed the juxtapositional nature of Messiaen’s bird music, ‘the music comes as a succession of isolated ideas, which rarely lead from one to another.’12 Just as the blurring of organic form interfered with Messiaen’s colour responses, so does the blurring of ideas constitute a blurring of imagery from nature. Alexander Goehr observed that ‘a waterfall or a bird was, as far as Messiaen was able to realise it, a real waterfall or a real bird.’13 Messiaen was so occupied with the realistic transcription of birdsong that he no longer engaged with the piano as an instrument with unique acoustic potential. It can be argued that Messiaen’s compositional approach differed significantly from his teaching. The wide range of music which was analysed in his classes has been acknowledged, and the enlightenment it bestowed upon Boulez was mirrored for Murail. According to Nonken, ‘Messiaen’s thought and writing encouraged his students to consider the piano… as an instrument of unrealized potential.’14 The apparent contradiction between the two manifestations of Messiaen’s musical life, as teacher and composer, is best explained by George Benjamin, who has stated that ‘He wanted to guide you to find your own voice, and to strengthen your gifts. He never imposed his ideas… he would only be stylistically censorious… if he saw you were over-influenced 12 Jeremy Thurlow, ‘Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux: a musical dumbshow?’ in Messiaen Studies, 119 13 Alexander Goehr, in Derrick Puffett, ed., Finding the Key: Selected Writings (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), 49, cited in Arnold Whittall, ‘Messiaen and twentieth-century music’ in Messiaen Studies, 251 14 Nonken, ‘Itinerary’ in The Spectral Piano, 16 17 by his musical world.’15 It can thus be concluded that Messiaen was a composer who was confident in his own voice, devoid of artistic pressure to conform to any particular aesthetic camp. ◆ Murail’s use of harmonic-timbral complexes generate a continuous and organic form, developing in response to the piano resonance. It is worth making clear that the sustain pedal is depressed for the duration of Territoires, allowing material to develop or exist solely in the resonance. Sonorities and aggregates emerge slowly from the piano texture to hold a brief period of focus before disappearing again from the acoustic landscape. Therefore, the work’s structure is essentially one of continuous elision between opposing sonorous centres, with each one vying for attention in the resonant macrostructure. With this understanding of the work, one can more easily understand Murail’s aesthetic objective, ‘the work is written for the resonances, and not for the attacks, which are considered as an inevitable but secondary phenomenon, as « scars » of the continuum.’16 This process of elision is averted only once throughout the twenty-eight minute long work, in the repeated fragment before rehearsal mark C. The performer is instructed to ‘Repeat this fragment (constantly diminishing and slowing down) until all resonances - have disappeared’, resulting in a blank canvas of piano resonance with which to start the new section of the work. However, this is a unique instance in the work and is inherently peripheral to an analysis of material which emerges from the piano resonance. Eliding sonorous centres can instead be observed in a prolonged passage, the first centre, A5, taking prominence and subsequently fading much faster than the second centre, the aggregate Murail refers to as an ‘ostinato chord’, G3-C#4-D5. The following analyses correspond to Excerpt 1 in Appendix B, and page numbers are given to guide the audio-visual analysis when necessary. The emergence of the A5 sonority can be observed in the gradual development and prominence of specific aggregates in the right-hand material. Notable transformations have been reproduced in Example 2.2. The aggregate G4-A♭4-B♭4 is sounded for the first time on page eleven, at 8:31 in Nonken’s recording. Its initial use is fleeting, notated as an acciaccatura. Another 15 George Benjamin, ‘Messiaen as Teacher — The Master of Harmony’ in Hill, The Messiaen Companion, 269 16 Tristan Murail, Territoires de l’oubli (Paris: Editions Musicales Transatlantiques, 1978) 18 Ex. 2.2 — Murail, Territoires de l’oubli — notable transformations from G4-A♭4-B♭4 to A5 aggregate emerges, D4-E4-F4, and begins to alternate with G4-A♭4-B♭4 from 8:41, becoming the basis for repeating fragments, the first of which is heard at 8:45. These fragments gradually transform and the A5 sonority is heard for the first time at 9:01. This transformation begins from 8:45, with the subtle introduction of A4 to the G4-A♭4-B♭4 aggregate. At 8:57, A4 is instead heard solely against B♭4, and the A5 sonority emerges by the reversal of this intervallic relationship on page thirteen. Meanwhile, the G4-A♭4-B♭4 aggregate has also transformed and at 9:06 a similar intervallic reversal contributes to the dominance of A5, when G♭4-A♭4 is enharmonically inverted to produce G#4-F#5. Nonken arrives at the rendezvous point at 9:38, and the A5 sonority repeats until shortly after rehearsal mark D at 10:07. Subjected to progressively fewer repetitions, A5 disappears from the resonance. Its last appearance at 10:51 is notated with one of Murail’s original dynamic symbols, >R, indicating that its attack should be hardly louder than its resonance. In this example, the A5 sonority is heard within sixteen seconds of aggregate transformation processes. It takes less than a minute to reach its apex of significance in the sonorous texture, and just over a minute for it to have disappeared. This analysis indicates a comparably fast transformation of sonorous centre when compared to the development of the G3-C#4-D5 ostinato chord. The emergence of the ostinato chord is a procedure that lasts for almost one third of the work’s duration, and is therefore a harmonic-timbral complex which holds far more formal significance than the A5 sonority. The chord, G3-C#4-D5, appears for the first time on page seventeen, at 12:27 in Nonken’s recording. Its last occurrence is on page twenty-two, and is heard at 17:07. However, the process of its emergence can be traced to as far back as page eleven, 19 when the left-hand material at 8:30 contains the pitches G2, C#3, and D#3. These three sonorities first come to prominence in the bass line on page twelve and thirteen. This bass line is perhaps the only pattern throughout the work that employs a traditional technical and formal construction. It is a non-retrogradable, two-voice canon. Example 2.3 illustrates the first three instances of the non-retrogradable line, which can be constructed by reading every other quaver from D#3. In the first two instances the tessitura widens, after which the line is simply repeated until its interruption at rehearsal mark D on page fourteen. A two-voice canon of this non-retrogradable line is hardly perceptible to the listener, but is paramount to its integration into the bass line’s monophonic texture. Constructed from continuous quaver motion, the two voices must logically be displaced to avoid the simple repetition of the same pitches. If the first voice begins at the height of the line, i.e. D#3, then the second voice paradoxically begins a quaver earlier on C2. In this reading it is the second voice which is displaced, C2 being the fourth pitch of the line to which both voices correspond. This displacement has not been chosen randomly. In fact, it has significant timbral consequences which contribute to the emergence of the G3-C#4-D5 aggregate. The extension and contraction of the intervallic relationship between the two voices is shown in Table 2.2, and illustrates two points of convergence at the middle and end of the non-retrogradable line. This gives prominence to the pitches G2-C#3 in a four-note figure at the end of each repetition, as shown by Example 2.4. Ex. 2.3 — Murail, Territoires de l’oubli — gradual widening of bass line tessitura Ex. 2.4 — Murail, Territoires de l’oubli — alternation of G3-C#4 20 The prominence of the three sonorities continues beyond rehearsal mark D at 10:07 in the recording. Murail could not make the importance of G2, C#3, and D#3 any clearer on pages fourteen and fifteen, devoting an entire system solely to them. It can be argued that this typographical device is used so that the performer will have a greater awareness of the formal significance of these pitches. With this awareness, the performer can endeavour to emphasise the sonorities in anticipation of an interruption of aggregates in the lowest regions of the piano tessitura, the most prominent of which is A0-C1-D1. Following a brief passage in which this low aggregate takes a dominating presence in the texture, the ostinato chord finally emerges from the resonances that have been built up over the course of several minutes. ◆ It has been seen that Messiaen’s fixation for juxtaposition of colour responses and realism in his birdsong prevented him using harmonic-timbral complexes in his music to explore sonority and resonance in any prolonged capacity. His disinterest in continual forms and their organic approach to resonance generates the image of a composer confident in his own compositional voice. Couleurs de la cité céleste represents the idiosyncratic character of Messiaen’s work, closely tied to colour responses which only he could perceive. Similarly, the use of birdsong in Sept haïkaï prevents the exploration of the acoustic capabilities of piano resonance due to its construction by isolated units. Murail on the other hand is clearly invested in realising an approach to sonority and resonance which is intrinsically connected to form. The slow emergence of the ostinato chord in Territoires de l’oubli could not have occurred in his teacher’s work. Instead, the influence of Messiaen’s juxtapositional approach finds surface manifestation in the elision of opposing sonorous centres. 21 Chapter III — Boulez and Murail A criticism of the Boulezian musical establishment is implicit in the programme note provided in Tristan Murail’s Territoires de l’oubli (1977). The composer lambasts the appropriation of the piano as a percussion instrument, blaming contemporary composers who ‘have strongly desired to destroy the powerful romantic and impressionistic image of the instrument.’1 In response to this alleged misappropriation, Murail proposes that the piano should be considered as ‘a group of strings whose vibration is caused by sympathetic resonance or by direct action of the hammers.’2 The acoustic capabilities and their corresponding resonant phenomena thus take prime position in Murail’s conception of the piano. It would be irresponsible not to question the simplicity of Murail’s denouncement of contemporary composers, and the extent to which the two aesthetic camps are polarised is easily challenged in a comparative analysis of this work to Boulez’s Structures II for two pianos (1956-61). Boulez has written that analyses which concern themselves with the vocabulary of a work (i.e. the series), rather than the overall form and developmental procedures from section-tosection, are ‘perfectly painless but perfectly pointless.’3 However, microscopic analytical observations shed light on the macroscopic whole which Boulez deems most important. Such analyses reveal layers of oppositional pairs, which Jonathan Goldman has suggested construct the basis of Boulez’s formalist aesthetic.4 In contrast to systematic construction, Murail adopts an ecological attitude to sonority and resonance. The spectral landscape of Murail’s work evolves slowly, thus inviting a broad methodology. ◆ 1 Tristan Murail, Territoires de l’oubli (Paris: Editions Musicales Transatlantiques, 1978) 2 ibid. 3 Pierre Boulez, ‘On Musical Analysis’ in Jean-Jacques Nattiez, ed., Orientations, trans. by Martin Cooper (London, Faber and Faber, 1986), 118 4 Jonathan Goldman, ‘Introduction’ in The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 27 22 In chapitre 1 of Structures II, Boulez employs a multifaceted approach to sonority and resonance. The following analysis corresponds to Excerpt 2 in Appendix B. The closing passage is divided into standard and small notation, the latter of which dominates the acoustic landscape. According to the score the small notes are to be played within the duration of the standard sized notes they follow or precede, and are to be played irregularly fast according to the difficulty and without discipline between the two pianos. The composer helpfully alludes to this section with Deliège, explaining his intention to ‘polarise certain classes of object around certain very perceptible and conspicuous centres.’5 The following examples of polarisation are in fact analogous to the fundamental dialectics of opposition Goldman has observed. The central B flat sonority (B♭4) is exploited in both pianos, struck thrice at subito fortissimo between bb.195-203 with the instruction to allow it to resonate. The small note groups pivot around this sonority in the loosest of terms. They generate sonorous drama in their rapid juxtaposition of extreme registers, contrasting dynamic patterns, and the rhythmic irregularity between each piano. Analyses of these variables reveal a macrostructure that indicates a greater concern for timbre than it does pitch, thereby challenging the grounds on which Murail dismisses Boulez, suggesting that his music’s worth is defined primarily by its pitch structure. The tessitura of the small-note groups corresponding to B flat are illustrated in Example 3.1. The frequency with which each pitch class occurs is catalogued in Table 3.1. A number of conclusions can be drawn from this data. Firstly, the division of notes between the two pianos is nearly equal despite their rhythmically irregular groupings. For instance, in b.195 the first piano plays twenty-four pitches in an eleven-note grouping, whereas the second piano plays twenty-five pitches in a twenty-five-note grouping. Secondly, the inner groups in b.199 are constructed of nearly double the number of notes than the outer groups. However, repeated pitches constitute fifty of the inner group’s ninety-five notes, thus generating the same acoustic landscape as the outer groups but with decidedly more intensity. These observations indicate an antinomy between stasis and polarisation between the inner and outer groups, whereby there is a doubling of intensity but a comparably smaller widening of the tessitura, particularly when b.199 is compared to b.203. 5 Pierre Boulez & Célestin Deliège, ‘The concept of harmony’ in Pierre Boulez — Conversations with Célestin Deliège (London: Eulenburg Books, 1976), 91 23 Ex. 3.1 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre 1 — b.195, 199, 203 — tessitura of groups corresponding to B flat. 24 An intent of sonorous drama can also be observed in the dynamic markings employed in the instrumental dialogue. The standard notation provides a dynamic framework, with an equal distribution of the four dynamic classes between the two pianos. By cataloguing the frequency with which the four classes of dynamic occur in the small-note construction, Table 3.2 reveals another polarisation. Almost literal oppositions can be distinguished between small note groups corresponding to pitches other than B♭4. The ppp and quasi p dynamics of C7 are outnumbered by the quasi f and fff dynamics of its polarising group G5. This relationship is then mirrored in A♭0 and F3, whereby the former’s quieter dynamics match the frequency of the louder dynamics of G5, and the latter’s loud dynamics match the frequency of the quieter dynamics of C7. This relationship is likewise found between the D♭5 and E♭0. The frequency of quiet to loud dynamics is almost inverse between the two instruments, indicating that the impression Boulez hopes to achieve is one of opposed dynamic forces. The small note groupings thus display a polarisation around B flat which is perceived as an explosive auditory phenomenon. However, their erratic and rhythmically irregular nature is polarised by the material they disguise. In omitting the small note groups, Example 3.2 reveals a sonorous framework with a simple rhythmic construction. Rhythmic complexity is thus set in opposition to the inherent simplicity of non-retrogradable rhythm, as illustrated by Example 3.3. Ex. 3.2 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre I — bb.195-203 — sonorous frame Ex. 3.3 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre I — bb.195-203 — non-retrogradable rhythm 25 The passage from rehearsal mark C on page seven to the marking ‘q’ on the second system of page eleven of Murail’s Territoires de l’oubli suggests a relationship between sonority and resonance which can be compared to that which has been found in Structures II.6 The music is divided into three layers: with two melodic parts, higher and lower, and the outer staves of music constituting echoes. The relationship of the echoes to the melodic material resembles the relationship of Boulez’s small-note groupings to his sonorous framework. In Territoires, the extension of the melodic parts’ pitch content is drawn out over the course of the passage, shown in Table 3.3. To illustrate the extent to which the melodic parts largely consist of repeated sonorities, only eighteen individual sonorities are present in the pitch content of each voice over the course of nearly three minutes. It is this repetition which generates the echo response, and the simultaneous increase in tempo and repetition results in an exponential increase in the echoes’ intensity. In short, the echoes grow in response to the intensifying body of resonance and thus feed back into it, growing even more intense as a result. In this passage, Murail has rendered what is commonly regarded as a feedback loop using essentially standard Western notation systems. Murail’s echoes therefore respond directly to the resonating ‘spectra’ of the intensifying melodic parts. This reading is supported by the composer’s programme notes, in which he states ‘The resulting harmonic aggregates are choosen [sic.] according to the natural resonances of the piano’.7 Murail’s objective is thus not one of polarisation but of amplification of the response to the resonance generated by the melodic parts. An ethos of opposition permeates the formal approach of Structures II, and chapitre 1 presents a dichotomy of specificity and flexibility in the parameters of rhythm and tempo. Charles Rosen has identified the paradox in Boulez’s work whereby ‘rhythms are to be interpreted strictly and the tempo very freely.’8 Table 3.4 lists the different tempo markings given in the score, the different metronome markings of each, and the page of their first appearance. The degree of specificity in Boulez’s tempi is evident, particularly where the same metronome marking is given in 6 Tristan Murail. The Complete Piano Music. Recorded 2003. Metier Sound & Vision. MSV CD92097. 2005. 2 compact discs. Disc 1, track 4. Marilyn Nonken. 5:29-8:13 7 Murail, Territoires de l’oubli 8 Charles Rosen, ‘The piano music’ in William Glock, ed., Pierre Boulez – A Symposium (London: Eulenburg Books, 1986), 90 26 a different spelling, for instance, in the first three markings of Très modéré. There are some minor inconsistencies, such as the Modéré marking on page seventeen which is four beats per minute faster than the Allant marking on page eighteen. This degree of specificity is impractical for performance, to say nothing of the listener expected to perceive such miniscule changes in tempo. Upon examination of the score, however, this is clearly not Boulez’s intention. Changes of tempo are incredibly frequent and are mostly imperceptible due to the extensive use of rallentando and accelerando markings. His intensive specificity is juxtaposed by sporadic passages written in free tempo, which culminate in the climactic passage from bb.149-156 marked ‘Libre, très irrégulier’. This passage can be observed in Excerpt 3 of Appendix B. Here, pitches are fixed to specific registers with varying degrees of consistency, generating a subtle sense of direction. Example 3.4 illustrates the pitch content of each ‘Libre’ section in aggregate form, and pitches which occur in different registers have been highlighted. The notes which appear in multiple registers construct a descending motion of chromatic clusters. All of the four pitches used in bb.139-140 are in fixed registers, resulting in a comparatively calm sonorous landscape as well as completing the chromatic descent illustrated by Example 3.5. Ex. 3.4 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre I — pitch content of the first six ‘Libre’ passages. Ex. 3.5 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre I — chromatic descent of pitches duplicated at different registers. 27 This subtle descent enables Boulez to maximise the effect of juxtaposition between bb. 139-140 and the predominantly unfixed registers of bb.145-148. The predominantly fixed content of bb.149-156 provides another juxtaposition, and gives the passage a greater climactic impact. The fixed and unfixed pitch structure of the passage is shown in Table 3.4. Unfixed pitches tend to have fewer repetitions, although F4 is an exception to this rule. If the single instance of F5 is ignored and F4 is instead treated as fixed, it can be observed that all the fixed registers are present in the chord sustained by the second piano throughout the passage. The pitch structure in the ‘Libre’ passages thus display both simple and complex layers of juxtaposition. It is significant that the apex of Boulez’s use of fixed register is to be found in passages that are marked in free tempo as it reveals the composer’s tendency for opposition on a broad, organisational plane. Aleatoric procedures of great complexity constitute the majority of material in chapitre 2 of Structures II. In addition to the main score for both pianists, there are several additional parts included which are to be played only by the first pianist. These parts, of which there are three varieties, are to be played when the first pianist is directed to do so by annotations in the main score. There are two groups of three ‘texts’, four ‘inserts’, and two ‘pieces’. The process by which these parts are integrated is complex due to the numerous possibilities the score allows for their placement. This formal approach is a clear example of what Boulez referred to as ‘aléa’ in his 1957 essay of the same name. Anne Trenkamp offers a succinct explanation of the term, ‘the composer controls precisely the areas in which chance may enter into the composition.’9 However, one would not expect the sheer complexity with which Boulez employs the technique from Trenkamp’s summary. The following graph illustrates the number of possibilities allowed for the integration of the texts, inserts, and pieces, into the form of the second chapter. This visual representation makes the composer’s use of a multi-layered arch form incredibly clear. Not only do the types of the additional material constitute such a form, but the number of possibilities also increase progressively towards the centre of the aleatoric construct before decreasing back to their original number. The composer perceived this method of indeterminacy to be similar to navigating a town, 9 Anne Trenkamp, ‘The Concept of ‘Alea’ in Boulez’s ’Constellation-Miroir’ in Music & Letters, vol. 57, No. 1 (January 1976), 5 28 Number of possibilities 80 20 18 8 8 First piece Texts (1/4, 2/5, 3/6) Inserts (1/2/3/4) Texts (4/1, 5/2 6/3) Second piece Indeterminate elements ’a street leads from one point to another, whereas a town has lots of streets and presents many different directions for building.’10 In Structures II, there are indeterminate elements which are circumstantial and peripheral to the form, and those which must be integrated with immense precision and dialogue between the two pianists. The lack of discipline between the two pianos in the peroration of chapitre 1 is an example of the first indeterminate element type because each pianist is free to decide how much content they can feasibly play and how fast they play it. On the other hand, the complex aleatoric procedures of chapitre 2 are of the most specified and inflexible variety, and they are demonstrably more complex than those employed by Murail in Territoires de l’oubli. However, Nonken’s assessment of aleatoric procedure in Territoires is fundamentally flawed. When comparing chance elements in Murail’s music to their use by other composers, she neglects to mention Boulez. Two of her statements invite comparisons to the elder composer which are not capitalised on, ‘in Murail’s music, the result is prescribed’,11 and ‘The embrace of chance 10 Boulez & Deliège, ‘The concept of mobility’ in Conversations with Célestin Deliège, 85 11 Marilyn Nonken, ‘The first generation’ in The Spectral Piano: From Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy to the Digital Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 82 29 elements cannot be equated with a total relinquishment of control. Murail’s use of aleatoricism is disciplined.’12 It is astonishing that Nonken would omit Boulez from an aleatoric discussion, particularly when aleatoric passages in Territoires bear far more similarity to those in Structures II than they do in works by John Cage, a composer she mentions regularly. Where Boulez abandons discipline between the two pianos in the peroration of chapitre 1, Murail does so between the two hands on pages twelve and thirteen.13 The relationship between the two hands is devoid of any common pulse. The left hand’s non-retrogradable bass line appears to be strictly notated, but its tempo constantly fluctuates between sixty and ninety beats per minute irrespective of the other hand’s material. The composer practically avoids notating the other hand’s material. Figures are given in boxed notation, followed thereafter by arrow markings indicating the number of possible repetitions. An annotation at the top of page thirteen presents more complications for the performer, ‘The right hand slows down, but the left hand keeps the same tempo.’ The pianist is left to their own devices to rendezvous successfully at the given mark on page thirteen.14 Finally, both hands repeat figures in boxed notation that are entirely rhythmically irregular. The right hand is to be repeated ‘as many times as necessary’ whilst the bass line repeats between three and six times. This passage demands greater pianistic technique than Boulez’s peroration solely because rhythmic irregularity is demanded of one performer rather than two. Nonken suggests that the composer employed a hybrid notational system of boxed figures in addition to traditional notation to alleviate the fear that ‘excessive notation would obscure his compositional ideal’.15 According to the composer’s programme notes, page twenty-four is the first climactic point of the work and should be treated like a cadenza.16 This passage makes use of chance elements very similar to those employed by in chapitre 2 of Structures II. This passage can be observed in Excerpt 4 in Appendix B. The cadenza begins with a trill between C7 and D♭7 and the simultaneous hammering of the C7 sonority. In the performance notes, Murail suggests this should produce an electronic-sounding timbre. With hindsight, this consideration can be interpreted as an experiment 12 Nonken, The Spectral Piano, 83 13 Murail. The Complete Piano Music. Nonken. 8:45-10:08 14 ibid., 9:38 15 Nonken, The Spectral Piano, 85 16 Murail. The Complete Piano Music. Nonken. 18:25-19:15 30 towards the fully mature spectral mode of composition which developed at IRCAM in the 1980s. These prolonged trills are bridged by intense passages of thunderous aggregate descents and ascents, marked with an fff dynamic. These intermediate passages share much of their pitch content, and the performer is given three possible points of departure in order to move on to page twenty-five, marked by scissor symbols. In addition to this, the composer includes a small ‘ad lib’ fragment, annotating that it can be omitted. The manifestation of aléa in Territoires is therefore much simpler than its employment by Boulez in chapitre 2 of Structures II. Whilst Boulez’s employment of aléa in chapitre 2 might be complex, it is not unjustified. As he says in his conversations with Celestin Deliège, his intention with Structures II was to define ‘specific areas of sonority and to create sonorities that would be as striking as possible in individualised registers’.17 It is in the additional parts for the first piano that Boulez achieves this aim, particularly in the exploration of the highest and lowest registers of the piano tessitura in the first and second pieces, respectively. Throughout both these passages, the second piano occupies only the middle register of the piano, against which the first or second piece is opposed. Murail’s use of aléa, on the other hand, is difficult to justify from a compositional perspective. Due to the overall consistency of pitch content in the aggregates, the point at which the performer choose to move on does not engender a particularly unique body of resonance in the cadenza’s aftermath. It can therefore be argued that Murail’s implementation of aléa gives the performer a series of choices that have no unique consequences. Boulez, meanwhile, gives his performers ample opportunity to make his work their own, their relationship being the sum of the sonorous implications of their formal choices. 17 Boulez & Deliège, Conversations with Célestin Deliège, 89 31 Conclusion — An aesthetic “rupture” of little substance Analytical observations made in this study have illustrated the extent to which the localised “rupture” that emerged in the Parisian musical establishment between 1940 and 1977 was predicated upon personal and political matters far more than it was upon compositional divergence. During this period and beyond, Pierre Boulez and Tristan Murail revelled in the currency their aesthetics held in the historical narrative. Whilst they might indeed represent polar opposites on an aesthetic spectrum, it can be argued that they intentionally obscured the reality that their compositional languages shared various similarities. In an establishment fuelled with exclusionist politics and aggressive polemics, it is understandable that the two composers would find it embarrassing to admit that their bold aesthetic statements actually bore little substance. Although Boulez’s compositional approach continued with a serialist technique, it is undeniable that Structures II poses far more significance as an exploration of piano sonority and resonance than it does a reorganisation of the serialised material the composer had used in Structures I. On the other hand, Murail’s approach was based upon a propensity for truly continual and organic procedures, melding form, sonority and resonance into what was essentially a single parameter in Territoires de l’oubli. It can therefore be seen that both students of Messiaen were concerned with the evolution of formal thinking in the manipulation of piano sonority and resonance. The formal considerations of Structures II surpass those of Territoires in the same way that considerations of sonority and resonance in Territoires surpass those of Structures II. The two composer’s politically-charged polemics thus engender a reading whereby they are primarily interested in demonstrating the aesthetic superiority of their compositional technique. In accordance with his compositional approach, Olivier Messiaen juxtaposes this extroverted desire for aesthetic validation. His work is idiosyncratic because it is so closely tied to his colour-hearing synaesthesia. Similarly, his realist obsession with birdsong renders the impression of a composer fully confident in his own compositional voice and with no desire to be perceived as the figurehead for a progressive and identifiably ‘French’ conception of contemporary music. Mindful of George Benjamin’s assessment of his teaching methods, Messiaen was indifferent to the compositional occupations of other composers, comfortably set in his wholly personal musical idiom. 32 In the wake of Boulez’s death on 5 January 2016, one can contemplate the extent to which his youthful protests and the exclusionist politics of his professional career has had an impact on the development of French music from the establishment of IRCAM until the present day. The historical narrative explored has observed Murail’s rejection of Boulezian aesthetics on the inaccurate basis that serialism engenders an inherently rigid outcome. It is problematic that this perception of Boulez is not uncommon, as it conveniently disguises the historical reality that the aesthetic trend to replace serialism did not resemble an antithesis nearly as much as it proposed. Thus, one can only be left to wonder whether the composer’s death will generate an aesthetic reassessment whereby the blemish left in the historical narrative by the total serialisation of Structures Ia will be cleaned away to reveal the full diversity of Boulez’s compositional career. 33 Bibliography Anderson, Julian & Murail, Tristan, ‘In Harmony. Julian Anderson Introduces the Music and Ideas of Tristan Murail’, in The Musical Times, vol. 134, No. 1804 (June 1993), 321-323 Bauer, Amy, ‘The impossible charm of Messiaen’s Chronochromie’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Bernard, Jonathan W., ‘Messiaen’s Synaesthesia: The Correspondence between Color and Sound Structure in His Music’ in Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall 1986), 41-68 Bernard, Jonathan W., ‘Colour’ in Peter Hill, ed., The Messiaen Companion (London: Faber and Faber, 1995) Black, Robert, ‘Boulez’s Third Piano Sonata: Surface and Sensibility’ in Perspectives of New Music vol. 20, No. 1/2 (Autumn 1981 — Summer 1982), 182-198 Boulez, Pierre, Structures — deuxième livre (London: Universal Edition, 1967) Boulez, Pierre & Deliège, Célestin, ‘The concept of harmony’ in Pierre Boulez — Conversations with Célestin Deliège (London: Eulenburg Books, 1976) Boulez, Pierre, & Foucault, Michel, John Rahn (trans.), ‘Contemporary Music and the Public’ in Perspectives of New Music, vol. 24, No. 1 (Autumn – Winter 1985), 6-12 Boulez, Pierre, in Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, ed., Orientations, trans. by Martin Cooper (London, Faber and Faber, 1986) Boulez, Pierre & Menger, Pierre-Michel, Jonathan W. Bernard (trans.), ‘From the Domaine Musical to IRCAM’ in Perspectives of New Music, vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter 1990), 6-19 34 DeYoung, Lynden, ‘Pitch Order and Duration Order in Boulez’ Structure Ia’ in Perspectives of New Music, vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring — Summer 1978), 27-34 Dutilleux, Henri, ‘Diversities in Contemporary French Music’, in John Beckwith & Udo Kasemets, ed., The Modern Composer and His World, trans. by John Beckwith (University of Toronto Press, 1961) Harbinson, William G., ‘Performer Indeterminacy and Boulez’s Third Sonata’ in Tempo, New Series, No. 169 (June 1989), 16-20 Hill, Peter, ‘For the Birds. Peter Hill, Who Recently Finished Recording the Compete Piano Music of Messiaen Talks about Performing the French Master’s Music’ in The Musical Times, vol. 135, No. 1819 (September 1994), 552-555 Hill, Peter, ‘Interview with Yvonne Loriod’ in Peter Hill, ed., The Messiaen Companion (London: Faber and Faber, 1995) Hsu, Madeleine, Olivier Messiaen, the Musical Mediator (London: Associated University Presses, 1996) Griffiths, Paul, Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time (London: Faber and Faber, 1985) Griffiths, Paul, ‘Olivier Messiaen’, New Grove Online, <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/article/grove/music/18497?q=messiaen>, accessed 23/12/15 Glock, William, ed., Pierre Boulez — A Symposium (London: Eulenburg Books, 1986) Goldman, Jonathan, The Musical Language of Pierre Boulez (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) 35 Keym, Stefan, ‘’The art of the most intensive contrast’: Olivier Messiaen’s mosaic form up to its apotheosis in Saint François d’Assise’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Ligeti, György, ‘On Music and Politics’ in Perspectives of New Music, vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring — Summer 1978), 19-24 McNulty, Paul, ‘Messiaen’s journey towards asceticism’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Messiaen, Olivier, Couleurs de la cité céleste (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1966) Messiaen, Olivier, Sept haïkaï (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1966) Murail, Tristan, Territoires de l’oubli (Paris: Editions Musicales Transatlantiques, 1978) Murail, Tristan. The Complete Piano Music. Recorded 2003. Metier Sound & Vision. MSV CD92097. 2005. 2 compact discs. Disc 1, track 4. Marilyn Nonken. Nichols, Roger, Messiaen — Oxford Studies of Composers (London: Oxford University Press, 1975) Nichols, Roger, Henri Dutilleux: Music – Mystery and Memory – Conversations with Claude Glayman, trans. by Roger Nichols (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2003) Nonken, Marilyn, The Spectral Piano: From Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy to the Digital Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014) Potter, Caroline, Nadia and Lili Boulanger (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2006) 36 Potter, Caroline, ‘Henri Dutilleux’, New Grove Online, <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/article/grove/music/08428?q=dutilleux>, accessed 23/12/15 Johnson, Robert Sherlaw, Messiaen (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1975) Johnson, Robert Sherlaw, ‘Birdsong’ in Peter Hill, ed., The Messiaen Companion (London: Faber and Faber, 1995) Rae, Caroline, ‘Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone?’ in Tempo, No. 212 (April 2000), 22-30 Rose, François, ‘Introduction to the Pitch Organization of French Spectral Music’ in Perspectives of New Music, vol. 34, No. 2 (Summer 1996), 6-39 Samuel, Claude, Conversations with Olivier Messiaen, trans. by Felix Aprahamian (London: Stainer & Bell, 1976) Simeone, Nigel, ‘Messiaen in 1942: a working musician in occupied Paris’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Smith, Ronald Bruce, ‘An Interview with Tristan Murail’ in Computer Music Journal, vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2000), 11-19 Stein, Leonard, ‘New Music on Mondays’ in Perspectives of New Music, vol. 2, No. 1 (Autumn — Winter 1963), 142-150 Thurlow, Jeremy, ‘Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux: a musical dumbshow?’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Trenkamp, Anne, ‘The Concept of ‘Alea’ in Boulez’s ‘Constellation-Miroir’ in Music & Letters, vol. 57, No. 1 (January 1976), 1-10 37 Troup, Michael, ‘Orchestral Music of the 1950s and 1960s’ in Peter Hill, ed., The Messiaen Companion (London: Faber and Faber, 1995) Whittall, Arnold, ‘Messiaen and twentieth-century music’ in Robert Sholl, ed., Messiaen Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 38 Appendix A Tables 39 Table 2.1 — Messiaen, Couleurs de la cité céleste — pitch structure of red, orange, and pink Table 2.1 — colours rouge, orangé, et or_ sardoine rouge rose, mauve, et gris_ rouge, taché de bleu orangé, or, blanc laiteux G3, C4 (x2), D4 (x2), B3, D4, A♭4 (x2), A4, E4 (x2), F#4, C#5, C5 (x2), D♭5, E5, D5, A♭5, C♭6, E♭6, G♭5, G5, B♭5 (x2), B♭6 (x2) F6, E♭7 G♭3, C4 (x2), E♭4, B2, B3 (x2), E4 (x2), G3 (x2), B♭3 (x2), G4, A♭4, A4 (x2), G♭4, G4, B♭4 (x2), C4, E4, A♭4 (x4), B4 B4 (x2), D♭5, F5, E6, E♭5 (x3) E♭3, F3, C#4, D♭4, D♭3, G3, D4 (x3), A2, A3 (x2), D4, F4, E♭3, G♭3, A♭3, B3, E4 (x2), F#4, A4, G4, B♭4 (x3), D5, D4, G4, B♭4 (x3), C5, B♭4, B4, E♭5, F5, E♭5, G♭5, A♭5 (x3), E5 A♭5, C6 (x2) A5 (x2), E6 (x2), B♭3, E♭4 (x3), D#4, E♭4, B4, C5, E5, G4 (x2), A4, B4, F#5, A5 (x2), B♭5, D6, A♭6, G7 C#5, F5, A5, C6, D6, E6, G#6, F#7 D7, B♭7 C#7 (x2) F#3, B♭3, D#4, E♭4, B♭3, C4, E♭4 (x4), E3, C4 (x2), E♭3, G♭3, A♭3, B3, G4 (x3), G#4, A4, G4, A4, B4, C#5, F5, E♭4 (x2), F4, G4, D4, G4, B♭4 (x3), C5, B♭4, C#5, D♭5, D5, A5, C6, D6, E6, G#6, A♭4 (x2), B♭4, B4, E5 / F#4, A♭4, F#7 D♭5, F#5, E6, D7 C5 (x2), E♭5, E5, G5, E5, F5, C6, F6 B5, C6, B6 B3, A4, A#4, B♭4, B♭2, B♭3, F#4 (x3), G♭3, C4 (x2), E♭4, E♭3, G♭3, A♭3, B3, C#5 (x2), D5, D♭5, A4 (x3), C#5, D#5, G4 (x2), A♭4, D4, G4, B♭4 (x3), C5, E5, F#5, G5, G#5, G5, B5 (x2) A4 (x2), B4 (x2), E5 / G4, B♭4, B4, C5, D♭5, F5, E6, D7, B♭7 D5, E♭5, E5, F#5, B5, C6 (x2), F6, E♭7 B♭6 (x2) A3, G4, G#4, A♭4, B♭2, B♭3, D4 (x3), D♭3, G3, D4 (x2), E♭3, G♭3, A♭3, B3, B♭4 (x3), C5, D♭5, A♭4 (x3), C5, C#5, E4 (x2), F#4, A4, D4, G4, B♭4 (x3), C5, D5, E♭5, E5, F#5 (x2), G#5, B5, B♭4 (x2), B4, E♭5, E5 / A♭4, B♭4, F#6 (x2), F7 C6 (x2), C#6, E6, F5, A♭5, C6 (x2) B4 (x2), D5, E♭5, E5, F#7 F#5, A♭5, B♭5, A♭6 E3, C4, E♭4 (x2), F4, G4, A♭4 (x3), B♭4, B4, D♭5, F#5, E6, D7 Table 2.2 — Murail, Territoires de l’oubli — two voices of the non-retrogradable bass line canon 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1st D#3 C#3 G2 C2 A1 F#1 E1 D#1 C#1 D#1 E1 F#1 A1 C2 G2 C#3 2nd C2 A1 F#1 E1 D#1 C#1 D#1 E1 F#1 A1 C2 G2 C#3 D#3 C#3 G2 40 Table 3.1 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre 1 — b.195, 199, 203 — frequency of pitches in groups Figure 3.1 — corresponding to the B flat sonority b.195 Piano 1 Piano 2 A A4, A5, A♭6 A♭3, A5, A♭6 B B♭4, B5 (x2), B♭6 (x2) B♭4, B♭5, B5, B♭6, B6 C C#4, C7, C#7, C8 C#4, C5, C#7, C8 8 D D4, D5, D#6, D7 D4, D5, D6, D#6 8 E E♭3, E5 (x2) E♭5, E6 (x2) 6 F F#5, F6, F#7 F3, F#5, F6, F#7 7 G G#3, G4, G7 G4 (x2), G#6 6 TOTAL 25 TOTAL 6 10 26 51 b.199 Piano 1 Piano 2 A A♭1, A2, A♭6, A6 (x2) A♭2, A2, A♭3, A4, A5, A6 11 B B2, B♭3, B♭4 (x4), B4, B♭6, B6 B4, B♭4 (x4), B6 (x3) 17 C C#1, C2 (x2), C#3, C6 (x2), C#7 (x2) C#1 (x2), C2 (x2), C6 (x2), C#7 15 D D♭1, D2 (x2), D3 (x2), D#6, D7 D♭2, D2 (x4), D#6 13 E E♭1 (x2), E5 (x4), E♭6 E♭3 (x2), E5 (x4), E♭6 14 F F4, F#5 (X2), F6, F7 (x2), F#7 F#2 (x3), F3 (x2), F4 13 G G#2, G3, G4, G5 (x2), G#6 G1, G2, G3 (x2), G4, G♭5 12 TOTAL 49 TOTAL 46 95 b.203 Piano 1 Piano 2 A A0, A♭1, A2 A5, A♭6 5 B B3, B♭4 (x3) B3, B♭4 (x3) 8 C C1, C3, C#7, C8 C1, C#7 (x2), C8 (x2) 9 D D2 (x2), D♭4 D2 (x2) 5 E E3, E5, E♭6 (x2) E♭1, E3, E5, E♭6 8 F F3, F#4, F7 F3, F#4, F7 6 G G#1, G♭4, G5 (x2) G#1, G3, G♭4, G5 8 TOTAL 25 TOTAL 24 49 41 Table 3.2 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre I — bb.195-203 — frequency of dynamic markings * Some notes crescendo or decrescendo in arpeggiations. They have been omitted from this data for the purpose of maintaining clarity, but their division between the dynamics is generally equal. † The data for f3 is approximate. Two five-note groupings arpeggiate down and upwards with a crescendo from quasi f to fff. Although the notation suggests it, the equal division of the dynamics cannot be stated for certain. Piano 1 ppp quasi p quasi f fff TOTAL B♭4 — sub. fff 6 5 9 4 24 C7 — quasi f 5 5 0 0 10 B♭4 — fff 7 15 6 8 36* E♭0 — ppp 0 2 0 0 2 10 5 0 0 15 5 5 6 9 25 33 37 21 21 112 G5 — quasi p D♭5 — ppp A♭0 — quasi p F3 — quasi f B♭4 — sub. fff TOTAL Piano 2 ppp quasi p quasi f fff TOTAL 6 5 9 5 25 G5 — quasi p 0 0 9 6 15 D♭5 — ppp 0 0 2 0 2 11 7 11 10 39* F3 — quasi f 0 0 5 5 10† B♭4 — sub. fff 5 6 5 9 25 22 18 36 30 106 B♭4 — sub. fff C7 — quasi f B♭4 — fff E♭0 — ppp A♭0 — quasi p TOTAL 42 Table 3.3 — Murail, Territoires de l’oubli — Rehearsal mark C — (a) to (p) — pp.7-11 — Table 3.3 — introduction of pitches to the melodic parts Rehearsal mark C — (a) to (p) Higher melodic part Lower melodic part (a) C7, c#7, B6 C6, B♭5 (b) C6 A#5, B4 (c) G#6 D5 (d) A#5, E6 (e) D5 F#5 (f) B♭5, G5 G5 (g) B♭4 (h) B4 D#4 (i) F#5 G#3 (j) F3, A#4 (k) (l) (m) (n) (o) (p) E♭4 D#5, E5, G#4, A4, E4 A5, C#5, E♭5, G4, B♭4, E4 TOTAL 18 18 Table 3.4 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre I — bb.149-156 — fixed and unfixed pitch content bb.149-156 Fixed Unfixed A A3 (x10) A♭1, A♭2, A♭3, A♭4 B B♭4 (x13), B6 (x11) C C5 (x9) C#2, C#3 (x3), C#5 (x2), C#6 (x2), C#7 D D2, D4 (x4), D5 E E1 (x7) E♭2, E♭3, E♭4, E♭5, E♭7 F F#2 (x9) F4 (x8), F5 G G1 (x12), G♭2 (x3) G#2 (x3), G#4, G#5 (x3), G#6 TOTAL 74 41 43 Table 3.5 — Boulez, Structures II, chapitre 1 — tempo and metronome markings Tempo marking Metronome markings Page of first appearance Large quaver = 52 quaver = 50 semiquaver = 96 1 20 30 Lent quaver = 58 semiquaver = 126 quaver = 63 quaver = 66 semiquaver = 126 (quaver = 63) 15 16 18 30 42 Assez lent quaver = 76 dotted quaver = 52 quaver = 72 1 2 28 Très modéré quaver = 92 dotted quaver = 63 (quaver = 92) quaver = 92 (semiquaver = 184) quaver = 88 semiquaver = 168 quaver = 96 quaver = 84 3 5 6 7 16 17 21 Modéré quaver = 104 (semiquaver = 208) quaver = 108 6 17 Allant quaver = 112 quaver = 104 quaver = 108 quaver = 116 3 18 29 43 Rapide quaver = 132 quaver = 126 quaver = 120 5 11 33 Vif quaver = 144 3 quaver = 144 (dotted quaver = 96) 7 Très vif quaver = 160 crotchet = 80 (quaver = 160) 2 9 Preste quaver = 176 2 44 Appendix B Score excerpts 45 Excerpt 1 — Tristan Murail, Territoires de l’oubli (Paris: Editions Musicales Transatlantiques, 1978) Excerpt 1 — — pages 7, 11-22 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 Excerpt 2 — Pierre Boulez, Structures — deuxième livre, chapitre 1 Excerpt 2 — (London: Universal Edition, 1967) — bb.195-203 59 60 61 62 Excerpt 3 — Boulez, Structures — deuxième livre, chapitre 1 — bb.149-156 63 64 65 Excerpt 4 — Murail, Territoires de l’oubli — page 24 66