Thanks! I'm a jazz musician and I have a history exam coming on contemporary classical composers such as Messaien. Being clueless on the matter, this was really helpful to get an idea of the man's techniques. Thank you :)

@AlannahMarie

2 ай бұрын

Best of luck for your exam!

Easily one of the best lectures I've ever heard on any musical topic--and I got a BA (LOTS of classes) in music from a very respected school. Thank you for putting in the effort to make it for us.

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Thank you, that's lovely to hear.

He literally had a captive audience.

@cabijista1

2 жыл бұрын

Damn, that’s dark! 😂

Thank you very much Marie....

Fascinating Alannah, thank you for this!

Great analysis - Thanks for posting.

Thank you for sharing this!

I've just discovered this channel because of this video, what a great and useful content, thank you a lot for this and please don`t stop making videos, you got a new suscriber, thank you again!

Thank you! I love this piece. I like your channel. Thanks for your analysis of contemporary pieces. This is very good material for composers. ✌🏽

Thank you sooooo much! NIce analysis on these techniques!

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

You're welcome! I'm glad you've found this helpful :)

Although you published this video a few years ago, you've won my respect (and, of course, my "subscribe"). I was studying this Work for my senior final project (A Contemporary Chamber Opera) and one of my intentions was to use some Messiaen's Modes. Just when I finished to Watch a Live Performance of this work, this video of yours shows up (yeah, algorithm, we know it, but you got the point). So Thank you so much for your work, I'm pretty sure it took you a lot of time!. Congratulations!

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video :)

Great work and sense of humour!

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! :)

Thank you so much Alannah, for an amazing and comprehensive lecture on his complex piece. I subscribed, you have a fantastic channel. Will definitely recommend to my student-composer colleagues 👍

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Thank you, that’s so lovely to hear!

Wonderful, informative video and great channel!

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you :)

Wow I am a fan!!!

Oh yea subscribed. Your vids are so helpful and full of context

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you, I'm glad you find them helpful :)

So useful!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep on doing this great videos!

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

aww thank you! That's so lovely to hear. :)

Modes of limited transposition are fun to use in a two octave circle.

very informative🐞🙏

great advices at the end.

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you :)

Excelent! Trying to undestand more of atonal music. Thanks and regards from Brazil!

A simply excellent and informative video. I'm looking forward to any potential videos regarding Messiaen in the future: do note that you've gained a subscriber. Thank you very much.

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Thank you very much for the nice comment. Yes hopefully there'll be more Messiaen videos soon :)

This was really good! Well done! X

@AlannahMarie

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you! 😀

@christopherporter403

4 жыл бұрын

No no no, thank you

You've saved me.

amazing channel!!!

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Thank you :)

Wow!!! I would like to meet some one who talk me about Messiaen and his works like you!... Tku so much

@AlannahMarie

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Interesting video. We know from Rebecca Rischin's book that there were nowhere near 5,000 in the audience at the premier in 1941. Rischin's brilliant book estimates the audience in attendance to be more like 300-400

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for bringing this up, yes I've heard it is thought Messiaen might have exaggerated that number.

I'm just a jazz simpleton who generally doesn't respond to anything remotely 'classical' old or modern but came across this piece on Radio 3 and was completely transfixed. To me parts of it sound like free jazz but at it's very best..... which isn't very often. Unlike so much 'cutting edge' stuff this is actually very musical to my ear as opposed to sounding like aural quantum physics with a hangover. I can follow most of what you're saying and I'm familiar with the use of modes and constructing chords from them. The limited transposition mode thing is not complicated. I'll work on the other stuff! Just being able to follow the score is a tough start for me. How you guys read these charts is beyond me.

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I'm glad you can follow most of what I'm saying and hopefully this will help you as you progress with your studies :)

@estellesher1008

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you. I am a musician but had no idea of all that.! Heard a recent performance streamed byWigmore Hall. Cant wait to listen again now

I wrote a piece once that used a mode that spanned a little larger than an octave. The resultant sound is odd but interesting. Another parameter is texture -- how many different notes or instruments are playing at any given moment.

Very nice analysis, thank you Alannah! PS: from north-east England? :) Lived there for one year, and the accent really stayed with me! Thanks again!

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you :) and yes I'm from the North. :)

@ArtVandelay99

3 жыл бұрын

@@AlannahMarie Still got it, hehe :) Greetings from Bucharest!

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Greetings ! :D

Take another look at the score for movement 1... The chord progression in the piano is actually amodal, Messiaen is using other techniques such as the "chord on the dominant". Movement 2 has an example of what you described, parallel chords within a mode.

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

Yes the first two chords are chords on the dominant but then he progresses into modes 3 and then 2 later on. Movement 2 also features chords on the dominant, though. The point is not to create a rigid precompositional method and replicate it. He's a composer and often deviates. These are mainly means of generating material he can then compose with but we can analyse the score and what he said about his process and see how he came up with various parts of the music. See Anthony Pople's book which I keep referring to in the video: regarding the piano part in movement 1, "the first two of these chords present a characteristic harmonic progression, founded on what Messiaen calls the 'chord in the dominant' [...] The remaining chords divide into three groups according to the mode from which their pitches are drawn [...] a group of six chords lying withing a single transposition of Messiaen's third mode [...] The last eight chords lie within Messiaen's mode two, though not in all cases at the same level of transposition..." (pp. 22-24) If you read more about movement 2 in Pople's book, he explains how the piano part in movement 2 also features the 'chord on the dominant'. So these compositional techniques Messiaen has are not rigidly segmented into the final piece, he essentially takes them and composes with them.

The piano has a 17 duration isorhythm starting on the 3rd beat measure 1 and ending on measure 5

How can the whole-tone scale be a mode if modes are the uses and parts of some scale and the whole-tone scale is not part of any scale? You can see it as a mode of the chormatic scale, but then it is confusing. Because the whole-tone scale (the I and II) have theoretically their own modes still, although this is not so important since they are the same.

@AlannahMarie

3 жыл бұрын

@emanuel I don't know what you mean when you say "modes are the uses and parts of some scale and the whole-tone scale is not part of any scale". Basically a whole tone scale has limited transpositions: you can only transpose it so many times before it becomes the same pitches you began with. Messiaen used the whole tone scale as one of his limited modes of transposition. However, when he composed with it, he played with the timbres (harmonics in the cello for instance) because he didn't want to sound like everyone else using whole tone scales around that time (Debussy). I hope this has answered your question.

Messiaen himself said that europeen music is not rhythmic, he uses greek ancient rhyhtm which is like walking and indian music.

@franciseire7338

Ай бұрын

he only found Mozart and Debussy understood organic rhyhtm

Love the video! Not convinced by the French pronounciation though :P

@AlannahMarie

4 жыл бұрын

Well, Chris, luckily for you it's not a French lesson. 😃😛 Thanks for watching x

@marshallartz395

Жыл бұрын

Not convinced by the English spelling of “pronunciation.” 😎🎹

the Parisian building where Messiaen lived, and at the very end of the video a Japanese blackbird. kzread.info/dash/bejne/i62mydyMfde-f6Q.html

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this, this was interesting to see. :) I couldn’t spot the blackbird though! :(

@jacquelinesalvin7158

Жыл бұрын

@@AlannahMarie merci beaucoup d'avoir regardé, je suis un bien mauvais pianiste. Le merle est à 16:30

@jacquelinesalvin7158

Жыл бұрын

@@AlannahMarie or here at 1:56 kzread.info/dash/bejne/X22m29GqY9m8gbA.html

Alannah - there is so much that you leave out of this ‘lecture’ of yours - and you assume that your audience already understands a lot of the words that you just through out. You are also Great at reading form the notes that you got from your lecturers but you don’t really explain them that much.

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

I wrote those lecture notes I’m reading. And it’s a lecture for first-year university Music students so a background of Music knowledge is assumed.

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Actually, @johnwade7430, could you help me out here and tell me what I leave out ?

@johnwade7430

Жыл бұрын

No PhD for me I’m afraid Alannah - don’t get me wrong, i only just discovered your channel and I’m looking forward to the Harrison Bertwistle programmes. Could you present one on Berio perhaps? Also Steve Reich would be nice too. I got a BA (2:1) from Leicester and went on to study an MA as well - where did you take your PhD? I realise that there isn’t much time in a video to go into too many details but I’d just like a little bit more that’s all:-) So when can we hear some of your own pieces then?

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Hi @johnwade7430, I wasn’t the one to write that PhD comment but I’ve removed it. Thanks I appreciate your feedback . I’ll look into Berio and Reich if you’re interested. The Messiaen one was one of my first videos so I am a bit stilted in it. I have some of my own music on my music channel which I think is linked to this lecture channel somewhere 👀

@johnwade7430

Жыл бұрын

@@AlannahMarie You are assuming that everyone understands the basics - What is the difference between ‘dissonance’ and ‘consonance’ - some examples played on an instrument would be great too - no breaking of Copy-write infringement there. One of Messiaen’s greatest influences was his love of Debussy and his opera ‘Pelleas et Mélisande’. No real mention of Debussy. I know - time. Have you used any of these techniques in your own writing? Would love to hear something.

Messiaen will be always an inspiration for me regarding style and harmony, because he is one of the few who achieved positive colors and musical meaning, but his programatic associations I find so crazy, or even forced, and some moments of his music are very abusive towards naivity, no matter how apparently sophisticated it sounds. Anyway he did the best and greatest works composed among the most recent and dead composers. People confuse a lot the most important and the best work. On my opnion his best work is Eclair Sur Le de La or whatever how you writer this. I put it also on a top 10 of the last 50 years. His music is very hermetic and he has relatively a huge recognition, most of the time because many people HAVE to play his works, not because many people understand his music. But for this he is lucky to have composed some digestible "hits". It is important to remember that those composers whould not easily become popular without their academical positions, although I am sure Messiaen deserved his position at the conservatory.

@AlannahMarie

Жыл бұрын

Hi Emanuel, thanks for your balanced comment, this provides a lot to think about, and I think you make a very interesting point about 'academic positions' especially.