› › Messiaen S Contemplations Of Covenant And Incarnation

Messiaen's Contemplations of Covenant and Incarnation

Author : Siglind Bruhn

Publisher : Pendragon Press

Page : 300 pages

File Size : 31,28 MB

Release : 2007

Category : Juvenile Nonfiction

ISBN : 9781576471296

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Book Description

The celebrated composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) characterized himself as a rhythmician, ornithologist, and theologian.All interpreters concur that his life and work are grounded in a profound faith. This book examines the translation of his faith into his musical language. It centers on a hermeutic analysis of two spiritually motiviated instrumental compositions, Visions de l'amen for two pianos (1943) and Vingt Regards sur l?enfant-Jésus/i> for piano solo (1944). Part I introduces the main aspects of the composer's religious environment (the catholic literary revival, his father Pierre and his mentor Charles Tournemire) as well as the components of his idiosyncratic musico-symbolic vocabulary. Parts II and III examine the twenty-seven movements comprised in the Visions and the Regards, whose thematic material, structure, and musical as well as spiritual function within the whole cycle are interpreted in light of the literary source and imagery that inspired Messiaen. This book is part of Siglind Bruhn's Messiaen Trilogy.



Messiaen's Interpretations of Holiness and Trinity

Author : Siglind Bruhn

Publisher : Siglind Bruhn

Page : 231 pages

File Size : 12,71 MB

Release : 2008

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 157647139X

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Book Description

Three of Olivier Messiaen's later works, La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité, and Saint François d'Assise, are linked by the fact that the composer refers to and quotes from Thomas Aquinas. The composer's reception of Thomistic texts is one of the principles guiding the interpretations in this study. On the one hand, Messiaen had been pondering Thomas's thoughts on the role of music in the life of a Christian and on music's possible spiritual content all through his professional life; on the other hand, the oratorio, the organ meditations, and the opera are the only works in which Messiaen quotes extensive Thomistic sentences addressing purely theological subject matter. The first aspect, Messiaen's appropriation of or felicitous congruence with the medieval theologian's views on music underlies all analyses as a kind of background fabric. The second aspect, Messiaen's quotations from the Summa theologica and their musical translation, determines segments of a larger discussion that, in the book's three main chapters, attempts to do justice to the compositions as a whole. While Thomas' theological aesthetics appears as a thread woven through a texture in a way that brings it only periodically to the foreground, the statements from Thomas's writings provide essential foundations determining the works' content and its musical rendering. This book is part of Siglind Bruhn's Messiaen Trilogy.



Messiaen's Explorations of Love and Death

Author : Siglind Bruhn

Publisher : Siglind Bruhn

Page : 289 pages

File Size : 27,64 MB

Release : 2008

Category : Juvenile Nonfiction

ISBN : 1576471365

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Book Description

Olivier Messiaens lifelong quest centered on the colors and rhythms of a music that would serve as a vehicle for his thoughts about time, his love of God, and his enthusiasm for birdsong. An additional topic about which he felt deeply is that of passionate, fated human love and its relationship to death on the one hand, the love of God on the other. During the years 1936-1948, he composed five cycles of vocal music to his own texts as well as the Turangalîla Symphony, the monumental centerpiece of his Tristan Trilogy. The focus of this study is the in-depth analysis and interpretation of these six works on love, with particular regard for their unusual wealth of poetic, sonic, and visual colors and imagery. The wonder of rainbows, the magic of exotic sounds, the fantastic attractiveness of surrealist representations, and the majestic inexorability of fate in myths of various times and cultures define Messiaens lyrics as much as his idiosyncratic, highly symbolic musical language, which never fails to build bridges between this and another world.



Messiaen in Context

Author : Robert Sholl

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 646 pages

File Size : 28,18 MB

Release : 2023-11-30

Category : Music

ISBN : 1108848060

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Book Description

The rich variety of aesthetic and cultural influences experienced by the French composer Olivier Messiaen helped foster the creativity that gave him a multi-dimensional presence in twentieth-century music. This book explores the ideas that animated Messiaen's thinking, and provides fresh perspectives on the culture that surrounds his music.



Computational Models of Rhythm and Meter

Author : Georg Boenn

Publisher : Springer

Page : 191 pages

File Size : 21,69 MB

Release : 2018-06-20

Category : Computers

ISBN : 3319762850

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Book Description

This book presents the latest computational models of rhythm and meter that are based on number theory, combinatorics and pattern matching. Two computational models of rhythm and meter are evaluated: The first one explores a relatively new field in Mathematics, namely Combinatorics on Words, specifically Christoffel Words and the Burrows-Wheeler Transform, together with integer partitions. The second model uses filtered Farey Sequences in combination with specific weights that are assigned to inter-onset ratios. This work is assessed within the context of the current state of the art of tempo tracking and computational music transcription. Furthermore, the author discusses various representations of musical rhythm, which lead to the development of a new shorthand notation that will be useful for musicologists and composers. Computational Models of Rhythm and Meter also contains numerous investigations into the timing structures of human rhythm and metre perception carried out within the last decade. Our solution to the transcription problem has been tested using a wide range of musical styles, and in particular using two recordings of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould. The technology is capable of modelling musical rhythm and meter by using Farey Sequences, and by detecting duration classes in a windowed analysis, which also detects the underlying tempo. The outcomes represent human performances of music as accurate as possible within Western score notation.



Messiaen Perspectives 2: Techniques, Influence and Reception

Author : Robert Fallon

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 465 pages

File Size : 19,54 MB

Release : 2016-04-22

Category : Music

ISBN : 1317097157

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Book Description

Focusing on Messiaen’s relation to history - both his own and the history he engendered - the Messiaen Perspectives volumes convey the growing understanding of his deep and varied interconnections with his cultural milieux. Messiaen Perspectives 1: Sources and Influences examines the genesis, sources and cultural pressures that shaped Messiaen’s music. Messiaen Perspectives 2: Techniques, Influence and Reception analyses Messiaen’s compositional approach and the repercussions of his music. While each book offers a coherent collection in itself, together these complementary volumes elucidate how powerfully Messiaen was embedded in his time and place, and how his music resonates ever more today. Messiaen Perspectives 2: Techniques, Influence and Reception explores Messiaen’s imprint on recent musical life. The first part scrutinizes his compositional technique in terms of counterpoint, spectralism and later piano music, while the second charts ways in which Messiaen’s influence is manifest in the music and careers of Ohana, Xenakis, Murail and Quebecois composers. The third part includes case studies of Messiaen’s reception in Italy, Spain and the USA. The volume also includes an ornithological catalogue of Messiaen’s birds, collates information on the numerous ’tombeaux’ pieces he inspired, and concludes with a Critical Catalogue of Messiaen’s Musical Works.



Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint Francois d'Assise

Author : Vincent Perez Benitez

Publisher : Indiana University Press

Page : 328 pages

File Size : 40,51 MB

Release : 2019-07-25

Category : Music

ISBN : 0253042895

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Book Description

In this comprehensive study of Olivier Messiaen’s magnum opus, Saint François d’Assise, Vincent Perez Benitez examines the opera from both theological and musical-analytical perspectives to ask how Messiaen expresses his Catholic theology through his work. Benitez combines a close reading of the opera score with accounts from Messiaen’s associates, studies of Messiaen’s birdsong notebooks and other primary documents, and an examination of the religious, musical, poetic, and visual arts literature with which the composer was familiar to explore how the opera’s harmonic language and sound-color relationships motivate its musical meaning and expression. Through his analysis of these diverse sources and comparisons of Saint François d’Assise with other works such as Berg’s Wozzeck and Wagner’s Parsifal, Benitez places Messiaen’s compositional practice within larger musical perspectives and historical contexts.



Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint François d'Assise

Author : Vincent Perez Benitez

Publisher : Indiana University Press

Page : 204 pages

File Size : 40,23 MB

Release : 2019-07-25

Category : Music

ISBN : 0253042909

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Book Description

In this comprehensive study of Olivier Messiaen's magnum opus, Saint François d'Assise, Vincent Perez Benitez examines the opera from both theological and musical-analytical perspectives to ask how Messiaen expresses his Catholic theology through his work. Benitez combines a close reading of the opera score with accounts from Messiaen's associates, studies of Messiaen's birdsong notebooks and other primary documents, and an examination of the religious, musical, poetic, and visual arts literature with which the composer was familiar to explore how the opera's harmonic language and sound-color relationships motivate its musical meaning and expression. Through his analysis of these diverse sources and comparisons of Saint François d'Assise with other works such as Berg's Wozzeck and Wagner's Parsifal, Benitez places Messiaen's compositional practice within larger musical perspectives and historical contexts.



Messiaen the Theologian

Author : Andrew Shenton

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 313 pages

File Size : 36,42 MB

Release : 2017-07-05

Category : Music

ISBN : 1351558463

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Book Description

For Olivier Messiaen, music was a way of expressing his faith. He considered it his good fortune to have been born a Catholic and declared that 'the illumination of the theological truths of the Catholic faith is the first aspect of my work, the noblest and no doubt the most useful'. Messiaen is one of the most widely performed and recorded composers of the twentieth-century and his popularity is increasing, but the theological component of his music has so far largely been neglected, or dealt with superficially, and continues to provide a serious impediment to understanding and appreciating his music for some of his audience. Messiaen the Theologian makes a significant contribution to Messiaen studies by providing cultural and historical context to Messiaen's theology. An international array of Messiaen scholars cover a wide variety of topics including Messiaen's personal spirituality, the context of Catholicism in France in the twentieth century, and comparisons between Messiaen and other artists such as Dante and T.S. Eliot. Interdisciplinary methodologies such as exegesis, theological studies and analysis are used to contribute to the understanding of several major works including Sept Haïkaï and Saint Francis d'Assise. By approaching Messiaen and his music from such important and original perspectives, this book will be of interest not only to musicians and theologians, but also to readers interested in the connection between spirituality and the arts.



Messiaen Perspectives 1: Sources and Influences

Author : Robert Fallon

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 389 pages

File Size : 48,58 MB

Release : 2016-04-22

Category : Music

ISBN : 1317097181

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Book Description

Focusing on Messiaen’s relation to history - both his own and the history he engendered - the Messiaen Perspectives volumes convey the growing understanding of his deep and varied interconnections with his cultural milieux. Messiaen Perspectives 1: Sources and Influences examines the genesis, sources and cultural pressures that shaped Messiaen’s music. Messiaen Perspectives 2: Techniques, Influence and Reception analyses Messiaen’s compositional approach and the repercussions of his music. While each book offers a coherent collection in itself, together these complementary volumes elucidate how powerfully Messiaen was embedded in his time and place, and how his music resonates ever more today. Messiaen Perspectives 1: Sources and Influences presents many new primary sources, including discussion of Messiaen’s birdsong cahiers, sketch and archival materials for his Prix de Rome entries and war-time Portique, along with performance practice insights and theological inspiration in works as diverse as Visions de l’Amen, Harawi, Timbres-durées and the organ Méditations. The volume places the composer within a broader historical and cultural framework than has previously been attempted, ranging from specific influences to more general contexts. As a centrepiece, the book includes an examination of the impact of one of the greatest influences upon Messiaen, Yvonne Loriod.