Thanks for your thoughtful analyses and reactions to this piece! Since there are 6 movements left in Turangalila and one week of class, I would like to assign individual movements to each of you to comment on below, as we've been doing for the other movements. I quickly assigned movements in class but I can't remember who is supposed to do what, so if you don't mind I will reassign as follows:
Matt, V. Joie du Sang des Etoiles
Cheryl, VI. Jardin du Sommeil d'amour
JP, VII. Turangalila 2
Mary, VIII. Developpement d'amour
Edo, IX. Turangalila 3
Kristin, X. Final
You're also welcome to take a look at the informative wikipedia page on this piece. For these remaining movements, instead of doing another form chart, discuss a topic of your choice such as motives, harmony, use of modes, rhythms, orchestration, poetry/extramusical ideas, etc. - try to write something interesting and enlightening about your assigned movement.
Don't worry if your posts are not in the order of movements; and to follow up on Matt's comment in class, you're all welcome to present other pieces if you wish, in addition to your work on Turangalila.
Final projects will be due on Friday, December 14. If people are free that day, I'd like to have a final class in lieu of an exam, to take a look at each other's final projects. Are people free at noon on Friday, Dec. 14?
Thanks and good luck!
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3 comments:
A very upbeat, joyful piece that turns the heavy statue theme into something unexpected. This is all about all the joys of love.
I think this piece has three parts at the highest level:
Part 1: [0]-[14]
Part 2: [14]-[21]
Part 3: [21-47]
Cadenza and Codetta: [47]-end
At this highest level, it has an A-B-A’-Cadenza/Codetta form.
Throughout the piece, Messiaen continues to use “slice and dice” techniques, assembling the same bits of thematic material in different ways. He often repeats in different orders, permutes, and overlays thematic components.
Part I has form: A-B-A’-B’-A’’-C
Part II is a big development of the main theme. He permutes the theme and casts it into three different rhythmic variations, and the variations show up in different parts of the orchestration.
The order of presentation of the rhythmic variations is: 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-3-3-3
Part III has form: A’’’-(B’’’-D’)-A’’’’-(B’’’’-E)-A’’’’’-F
This is a formal expansion on part I, particularly if you consider the B’’’-D as a single unit and the B’’’’-E as another single unit.
The formal organization is very hierarchical, and there are similarities in its structure at the highest levels and the lower levels. For example:
Part I has the form: A-B-A’-B’-A’’-C.
Also, Section A has the form: a-b-a’-b’-a’’-c’-a’’’-c.
Pretty similar!
Part I: [0]-[14]
Section A: [0]-[2]
This is the main theme of the movement, and it is based on the Statue theme. It is very fast, and danceable. I could see this as a modern ballet. This section has a conversational feel, with alternating statements and responses, in changing textures. The third exchange has the thinnest texture, and the fourth, the thickest.
Its structure is: a-b-a’b’-a’’-b’’-a’’’-c.
Section A: [2]-[4]
Essentially a repeat of A.
Section B: [4]-[6]
[4]-[5] Has structure d-e-d-e.
[5]-[6] Has structure f-g-f-g’-h
Section A’: [6]-[8]
A variant of A. Adds triplet patterns in Celesta, Timbres, and piano at 6.
Section B’: [8]-[10]
[8]-[9]: An inverted form of [4]-[5].
[9]-[10]: A development of [5]-[6]
Section A’’: [10]-[11]
An abbreviated A section, sort of a-a’-c’
Section C: [12]-[14]
Part II:
D: [14]-[21]
This section develops the main theme. It shows up in 3 different rhythms in the brass, and keeps repeating the 3 different rhythms cyclically. The notes are accented to help bring them out. I think it’s hard to hear this in the middle of everything else that is going on, and probably wouldn’t be able to hear it if it weren’t is such a different register and distinct timbre.
The repeats of the rhythmic variations on the theme have the form: 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-3-3-3. Note that the last form is repeated 3 additional times.
This section is also full of energetic trills that are passed around the instrumentation.
The piano seems to be playing a form of the main theme also (and its notes are accented as well).
Part III: [21]-[47]
Material from all previous sections appears here.
A’’’[21]-[23]:
Has conversation statement/response between brass and strings/onde. Pattern is a-b-a-b-a-b-b
B’’’ [23]-[25]:
Based on material from Section IB.. Also has energetic trills of section IID.
D’ [25]-[32]:
Rhythmic variations on the theme from part II appear again in the brass. The variations are presented in varying order, along with 3 new rhythmic versions of the theme. They appear both serially and simultaneously in the brass. Lots of passages with chromatic descent.
A””:[32]-[34]:
Statement response between winds and strings. Again, an a-b-a-b-a-b-b form.
B’’’’:[34]-[36]:
Rapidly accelerating form of material from Section 1B.
E: [36]-[38]:
Ends with a big, transitional chromatic descent
A’’’’’: [38]-[43]
Big presentation of A, trading the theme (statement and response forms) around the orchestra.
F: [43]-[47]:
[43]: Another form of statement/response with triplets.
[44]: A chromatic crawl.
[45]-[46]: Chopped-up and rhythmically permuted bits of A.
Piano Cadenza: [47]
Codetta: [48]-end
Statement of the statue theme again, almost in its original form.
Some Observations:
The entire movement is a development on the statue theme, and it is interesting to see how many ways it has been used and presented:
1) [0]-[2] is the first variant; it is upbeat and danceable, in opposition to the original theme (sort of like the definition of Tarangalila itself).
2) “Conversational” presentation of the theme, passed around the orchestra.
3) [14]-[21] develops the theme rhythmically, interleaving three rhythms, and presenting the rhythms in different instrumentation, in cyclic order.
4) [25]-[32] extends the interleaved rhythmic presentation in [14]-[21], and adds three new rhythms.
5) [48] is the original theme.
Structural consistency at multiple levels:
1) Parts I and II have a variant of A-B-A’-B’-A’’-C
2) Section A has form: a-b-a’-b’-a’’-c’-a’’’-c.
This sounded as like a dance to me. It had so much energy and forward motion that I could see dancers while I was listening to this, and imagine choreography.
VIII. Developpement d'amour
As I thought about what I would write for my comment to my assigned movement, I first drew a blank. I will attempt to add something personal to the piece in any way that I can rather than just spewing out facts that anyone could find by looking at the score or listening to the piece. So here goes:
My first inclination was to look more in depth at the title. I think that a lot of times we as composers and as listeners of another person's music overlook the importance of the title. It can have many meanings. In this particular case, without having read anything or listened to the movement to begin with, I had two ideas about the title. It is the "Development of Love" and to me, there are two radically different meanings to this title. The first is that it can be an actual musical development section in the symphony, and the second is that it can pertain to love and be about the blossoming of love. This may seem obvious, but I think that Messiaen meant both of these things by this title.
One thing i'd like to point out is that once we are this far into the symphony, I feel as though there is nothing that should be very foreign to the listener, and that Messiaen doesn't necessarily use any completely new or unheard ideas so far. Right off the bat, familiar motives are thrown at us in newly mutated forms that are sometimes hidden and sometimes blatant. A blatant example is once again, the statue theme. Also, the Ondes Martenot once again shows it's prominance in this movement and this is nothing new.
So I think it is safe to say and with much justification that repetition is definitely a technique that Messiaen uses to keep the music coming. What interests me is how interest can be kept with this in mind. I believe there is a limit to how much repetition a listener can take before he or she says "Ok, I get it, let's move onto something new." I think that Messiaen does a few things to make this effective. First, while the statue theme, for example, is no doubt stressed a lot throughout the course of the symphony, I feel as though the time in between each repetition is enough to allow my aural palate to be cleared so to speak. Also, something about the way that Messiaen makes it different by in most cases very little nuances makes each new appearance of the motive feel fresh to me.
Which brings us to a new melody, the love theme that I feel this entire movement centers around! Something very interesting to note: while I called this melody a new one, I felt the same sense of climbing a mountain and running out of steam as I did in Chant D'amour 2 (Movement 4). This led up to the love theme in that movement and I get the same feeling from this movement, only the melody is a bit different this time. Again, we see how much mileage Messiaen can get out of extending a single idea.
All of these ideas, I think, help me to back up my claim that this actually is the musical development of the entire symphony. This is his movement to really play around with all the previous ideas that he has used so far and to see where he can take them. I'd like to point out that Wikipedia further strengthens my hypothesis as I clicked on the link for the Turangalila article.
Some of the extra musical inspirations that surround this piece peak my curiousity because I think it definitely adds to the piece and my perception of it. It is a fact that most of Messiaen's works are related to religion as he was a devout Catholic. This piece however is not inspired by religion, but rather by the myth of Tristan and Isolde. I think this is important to know in order to better understand the piece. So, this movement could also be looked at as the development of Tristan and Isolde's love, and I feel the music emulates that by getting more complicated and intense as time moves forward.
So I've attempted to make a few comments about some things I feel are worth noting about this particular movement. It's one of the most exciting movements of the piece for me because everything starts to come together.
Messaien uses a lot of chromatic scalar motion to build up tension during this piece, and then drops out, creating a dramatically lighter texture as compared to what the listener just heard. For example, at 10 measures before rehearsal mark 17, he has a long, almost full-orchestra chromatic movement for three bars, and then cuts out a lot of instruments, leaving only a few such as the clarinet, trombone, and a few strings, but then they too do a chromatic scale buildup into square 17. He also passes scalar patterns like this between voices from 29-31.
Also, Messaien uses a lot of repeated notes to build up tension. We were just studying how Bach and Handel would do this in their pieces (a relatively simple way to create suspense) in Music History 313, and I thought it was interesting that Messaien uses it too. At rehearsal mark 23 is probably the best example of this. When composing, I always thought it was a relatively bad idea to sit on the same note for consecutively more than twice in a row, but Messaien says otherwise, so I guess it’s okay!
The recording from the library is not the best one out there, I think, because when listening to it, it was sometimes hard to tell where the beat was. Especially in the long rallentando into square 34… it was rather sad. I wanted to be like, “watch your conductor!” because the parts were not together at ALL (four bars before 34 particularly). And even AT square 34, some of the voices seemed a bit smeary. Perhaps my ears were only picking up the onde martenot, but some other voices, especially the brass (trumpets) seemed “blasty” on the high notes and the lines seemed very vertical.
I loved the last chord of this piece. Everything just cuts out, and then the last chord comes in very quietly and builds up for almost 20 seconds to a triple forte. Very dramatic!! I really love the way Messiaen can “get away with” “pretty chords” like this, it makes me think that there is still some hope left for tonality… Although it is not quite as “cheesy” as the fifth movement, movement 10 reminds me a lot of that movement. Overall, this movement’s steady rhythm and relatively easy ability to be sung makes it a great and even catchy ending to Turangalila.
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