A Study Of Messiaen’s Serial Technique

Olivier Messiaen is an influential French composer of the 20 th century.His works are distinctive in terms of key,rhythm,melody,and harmony,and it can be said that Olivier Messiaen’s musical language is unique and self-contained.Olivier Messiaen’s serial techniques are different from those of the Second Viennese school as well as from those of the subsequent Integral Serial.It is unique and complex,from the origin of the sequence prototype,to the design of the sequence prototype,to the development of the sequence.Messiaen’s serial techniques involve at most four types of musical parameters: pitch,rhythm,dynamic,and articulation.This paper analyzes and summarizes the characteristics of a single sequence of musical parameters by taking these four sequences as dimensions and their use in compositions,so as to further observe the relationship between different sequences of parameters.This paper contains three parts: Introduction,Main Body,and Conclusion.The first chapter is about Olivier Messiaen’s life,composition phases and sequential music compositions,which divides Olivier Messiaen’s music compositions into four periods and gives an overview of Olivier Messiaen’s sequential music compositions.Chapter 2 discusses Olivier Messiaen’s theory of sequential composition and related developments,discusses Olivier Messiaen’s theory of sequential composition and other scholars’ researches,and explains Olivier Messiaen’s common methods such as symmetrical permutation,open-fan permutation,and closed-fan permutation.Chapters 3 and 4 explain the sequence prototyping and sequence development methods of the rhythmic sequence and pitch sequence,respectively,and analyze and summarize the characteristics of the rhythmic sequence and pitch sequence.Chapter 5 discusses the relationship between the different parameter sequences,first discussing the characteristics of dynamic sequence and articulation sequence,and then explaining the relationship between dynamic sequence,articulation sequence,pitch sequence and rhythmic sequence.The discussions in the second to fifth chapters are combined with several works of Olivier Messiaen from different creative phases,such as Cantéyodjaya,Mode de valeurs et d′intensités,?le de feu 2,and Livre d’orgue from the second creative phase,and Catalogue d’oiseaux from the third creative phase.and Chronochromie in the fourth creation phase,among others.The use of serial techniques by Olivier Messiaen in different compositional phases and genres is different from one another.Therefore,on the basis of summarizing Olivier Messiaen’s serial theory and techniques,this paper explores the characteristics of different parametric sequences and their relationship with each other,and also analyzes the serial techniques involved in Olivier Messiaen’s works in different compositional phases and genres.