Week 2: Messiaen & Scelsi

 

Read:

Anthony Pople, "Messiaen's Musical Language: An Introduction"

Chart of the Modes of Limited Transposition

Chart of Messiaen's late chord types

Paul Griffiths, "Catalogue de Couleurs: Notes on Messiaen's Tone Colors on his 70th Birthday"

Alex Ross, "The Messenger"

"La Notes Juste. Julian Anderson Appraises the Work of the Enigmatic Giacinto Scelsi"


Further Reading:

Excerpts from Olivier Messiaen, Technique of my Musical Language (1944)

Amy Bauer, "The Impossible Charm of Messiaen's Chronochromie"

Cheong Wai-Ling, "Plainchants as Coloured Time in Messiaen's Couleurs de la Cité Céleste"

Robin Freeman, "The Life and Work of Giacinto Scelsi"

Tristan Murail, "Scelsi and L'Itinéraire: The Exploration of Sound"

Tristan Murail, "Scelsi, De-composer"


Listen:

Messiaen, Chronochromie, Introduction and Strophe I (1959–60)

Messiaen, Couleurs de la Cité Céleste (1963)

Scelsi, Quattro Pezzi per Orchestra (su una nota sola) [Four pieces each on a single note], for chamber orchestra (1959)

Scelsi, Anahit "Lyric Poem on the name of Venus" (for violin and 18 instruments) (1965)

Scelsi, String Quartet No. 3 (1963) (local streaming)

Scelsi, String Quartet No. 4 (1964)

Scores:

Chronochromie, Strophe I

Un Sourire

Quattro Pezzi per Orchestra

String Quartet No. 3

String Quartet No. 4

Assignment: Choose either the Messiaen or Scelsi; due Feb, 1

1. Messiaen's Un Sourire, Word doc; pdf

Un Sourire (1989)

2. Scelsi, String Quartet No. 4, Word doc, pdf version

Resources:

The Giacinto Scelsi Foundation