Page 131 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2020. Konservatoriji: profesionalizacija in specializacija glasbenega dela ▪︎ The conservatories: professionalisation and specialisation of musical activity. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 4
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the role of the conservatoir e de par is in messiaen’s development ...
drifting further away, as if she wouldn’t even belong to our planet,
as if she would be from another world, another dimension.
Immediately Gollot makes the link, asking: “What glistens so from
the depths of the water?”
What’s so extraordinary in this phrase?
Reflections in the water is one of Debussy’s works.
A pupil: Golden fish.
Messiaen: Golden fish. Yes, but all of Debussy is about watery thin-
gs or shimmering things.
[Laughter.]
I am going to play it for you now. Then I shall ask you some
questions.
Gollot says: “Where are you born?” (Excuse-me, I sing very badly. I
have a composer’s voice.)
Melisande replies “ far from here. Far. Far?”
Gollot: “What glistens so from the depths of the water?”
[Later during the lesson] Messiaen: I play both. Here is the tone by
tone scale. Here is the second interpretation. This one has a much
warmer color. The first is cooler. The second is warmer. Do you
agree?
Do you agree on grey-violet for the first?
They always worry about the colors...
[Laughter.]
A pupil jokes: I’m colorblind.
Messiaen: This seems to me a sort of orange, but an orange with to-
uches of blue.
A pupil: Touches of green!
Messiaen: Blue and green are cool, yes. But the orange dominates.”21
Thus, at the end, Messiaen incidentally spoke about colors associat-
ed to sounds. It was his famous synesthesia. Was Messiaen looking for an
impossible “synesthetic” complicity22 with his pupils? Or was he trying to
captivate these romantic teenagers with a mysterious supernatural capaci-
ty, this synesthesia?
21 Transcribed from: Aleksandra Pavlović, “Messiaen on Debussy and Colour,” 22 Fe-
bruary 2014, Youtube, 2:35, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTtz76AFfw4.
22 Messiaen also seemed to “promote” his faith, or his taste for astronomy, through
this “distant” Melisande, distant indeed – according to the composer – “as if she
wouldn’t even belong to our planet, as if she would be from another world, another
dimension.”
129
drifting further away, as if she wouldn’t even belong to our planet,
as if she would be from another world, another dimension.
Immediately Gollot makes the link, asking: “What glistens so from
the depths of the water?”
What’s so extraordinary in this phrase?
Reflections in the water is one of Debussy’s works.
A pupil: Golden fish.
Messiaen: Golden fish. Yes, but all of Debussy is about watery thin-
gs or shimmering things.
[Laughter.]
I am going to play it for you now. Then I shall ask you some
questions.
Gollot says: “Where are you born?” (Excuse-me, I sing very badly. I
have a composer’s voice.)
Melisande replies “ far from here. Far. Far?”
Gollot: “What glistens so from the depths of the water?”
[Later during the lesson] Messiaen: I play both. Here is the tone by
tone scale. Here is the second interpretation. This one has a much
warmer color. The first is cooler. The second is warmer. Do you
agree?
Do you agree on grey-violet for the first?
They always worry about the colors...
[Laughter.]
A pupil jokes: I’m colorblind.
Messiaen: This seems to me a sort of orange, but an orange with to-
uches of blue.
A pupil: Touches of green!
Messiaen: Blue and green are cool, yes. But the orange dominates.”21
Thus, at the end, Messiaen incidentally spoke about colors associat-
ed to sounds. It was his famous synesthesia. Was Messiaen looking for an
impossible “synesthetic” complicity22 with his pupils? Or was he trying to
captivate these romantic teenagers with a mysterious supernatural capaci-
ty, this synesthesia?
21 Transcribed from: Aleksandra Pavlović, “Messiaen on Debussy and Colour,” 22 Fe-
bruary 2014, Youtube, 2:35, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTtz76AFfw4.
22 Messiaen also seemed to “promote” his faith, or his taste for astronomy, through
this “distant” Melisande, distant indeed – according to the composer – “as if she
wouldn’t even belong to our planet, as if she would be from another world, another
dimension.”
129
