Messiaen's Musical Techniques: The Composer's View and Beyond by Gareth Healey

Messiaen's Musical Techniques: The Composer's View and Beyond by Gareth Healey

Despite Messiaen's position as one of the greatest technical innovators of the twentieth century, his musical language has not been comprehensively defined and investigated. The composer's 1944 theoretical study, The Technique of My Musical Language, expounds only its initial stages, and while his posthumously published Trait de rythme, de couleur, et d'ornithologie contains detailed explanations of selected techniques, in most cases the reader is left to define these more precisely by observing them in the context of Messiaen's analyses of his own works. Technical processes are nevertheless in many cases the primary components of a work or movement. For instance, personnages dominate 'Joie du sang des toiles' from the Turangal (R)la-symphonie, and in certain cases, such as 'L' change' from the Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-J sus, the process (asymmetric augmentation) is the only structuring element present. Given this reliance on idiosyncratic techniques, clear comprehension of the music is impossible without a detailed knowledge of Messiaen's methods. Gareth Healey charts their development and interconnections, considers their relationship with formal structures, and applies them in refined and extended form to works for which Messiaen himself left no published analysis.

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ISBN 13
Title	Messiaen's Musical Techniques: The Composer's View and Beyond
Author	Gareth Healey
Condition	Unavailable
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Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.