Thursday 12 May 2016


Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum - Olivier Messiaen
After discussing the power of musical cues in previous blogs I came by chance across Olivier Messiaen’s score of Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum written in 1964. Reading through the score made me think about Messiaen’s use of references instead of the pitch and rhythm structures which had occupied me before. The cues are there from the start with the title which translates as “And I wait for the resurrection of the dead”.

In the introduction to the work Messiaen paraphrases passages from Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica concerning the resurrection. As this blog is examining cues and their effect on listeners there is a necessity to understand some of the views regarding the concept of resurrection, particularly in societies like my own in which religious belief and reading is on the decline. I shall endeavour to make a very brief summary:

The raising of the dead plays a central role in Christian belief which states that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection shows the possibility that some or all of us may be reborn in the future. Will both Christians and non-Christians will be resurrected? The conventional thought is that it is for all, but the type of resurrection may be different for believers and non-believers.

One may say with some assurance that Messiaen belonged to the believers, and it is from this angle that one should consider the first of these cues. The titles of the five sections are secondary cues to the title, here they are in French and English:

"Des profondeurs de l'abîme, je crie vers toi, Seigneur: Seigneur, écoute ma voix!"

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
   to the voice of my supplications!

"Le Christ, ressuscité des morts, ne meurt plus; la mort n'a plus sur lui d'empire."

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

"L'heure vient où les morts entendront la voix du Fils de Dieu..."

Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

"Ils ressusciteront, glorieux, avec un nom nouveau -- dans le concert joyeux des étoiles et les acclamations des fils du ciel."

The following two translations are mine as the text is a combination of partial verses.

They rise, glorious, with a new name - in the joyous concert of stars and the ovations of the sons of heaven.

"Et j'entendis la voix d'une foule immense..."

And I heard the voice of an immense crowd

The fourth quotation deserves a little closer examination, if we take the passage as a whole we have God the architect speaking from a whirlwind:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements – surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted their joy.

For me this reference addresses the whole process of creation which is also reflected in the art and music of man. I am sure that the knowledge of this extended reference is intended.

It won’t have escaped the attention of most readers that the term voice recurs both as personal (hear my voice) and as represented by the voice of Christ.  The quality of the voice changes between pleading and joyous. Do these cues suggest that the music is to take on a (particular) vocal character? Connections have been made between the melodic material of Et Exspecto and plainsong and for those interested in learning more of the correlation of the two I would recommend the commentary by J.H. Rubin at


On a more immediate and less intellectual level there is a vocal character to the music despite the use of the augmented fourth and major 7ths and minor 9ths. In its intention it has similarities to the main melody of “Stone Litany” by Peter Maxwell Davies though the treatment is more homophonic in Messiaen’s hands. A second difference between the composers is that Messiaen permits himself repetition of phrases or parts of phrases while Maxwell Davies’s melody undergoes continual variation. Though two themes are marked as plainsong based there are a number of unmarked phrases which carry the same musical design and these appear throughout the work.

Returning to the use of the term voice it is evident that there is an extension of the human voice to the sounds and style of organ technique, and this is further adapted to the winds of the orchestra. The suggestion of organ tones is blended with a vast array of percussion (including 3.5 octaves of tuned cowbells). A short historical deviation from the main work offers some thoughts on the selection of timbres, Messiaen had received a commission to write a work for three trombones and three xylophones, in contemplating how to make use of the ensemble he came to associate the trombone with an apocalyptic sonority which took him into revisiting the text dealing with the Apocalypse, the Book of Revelations. The text of Revelations leads us from the trombone to the trumpets

And the seven angels had seven trumpets

And one can imagine that the connection with fanfares is made, so we have in the opening movement a 20th century fanfare with short phrases (often of 7 notes) in a ‘super-human’ (in the sense of extending the range and timbre of the) voice.

What of the percussion? In the blog on cues I referred to the use of previous music and its forms as a stimulus to both expectation and denial, while familiarity with a wider group of musicians and their style helps consolidate our acceptance of the sound world explored in the composition. The percussion orchestra is a development of the gamelan sounds experienced by Debussy and links Messiaen through to Boulez, they make a link with the East and proclaim the universality of the music. The percussion also brings in the qualities of sound, noise and the gradual movement to silence which provides the 20th century character to a music strongly related to the past.

Just in case these cues are insufficient to stimulate particular pictorial images while we listen Messiaen offers further notes to each of these quotations shown above, some reflect more recent scientific outlooks as understood by the composer, this is on the 4th section:

"Our time of scientific precision, at the time of the theories on the expansion of the universe one perceives that the Bible always told the truth, that the number of stars are really "innumerable”.

Some parts are more religious and poetic:

The …bells and cencererros, the Hallelujah chorus of trumpets with its halo of harmonics, symbolise one of the qualities of the “glorious body”.

And as the informed listener might expect reference is made to bird-song “its joy and gift of agility.”

For Messiaen bird song and human song is all part of the outpouring of praise for God as the following quotation indicates:

“Plainsong Alleluias, Greek and Hindu rhythms, permutations of note-values, birdsong of different countries all these accumulated materials are placed at the service of colour….The sound-colours in their turn are a symbol of the Celestial City and of Him who dwells there.”


Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum was initially commissioned to commemorate the war dead. If time permits the reader it may be of interest to compare Messiaen and Britten in their responses to similar commissions; for Messiaen, a devout Catholic, death is followed by everlasting life and this is to be celebrated. Britten makes his focus the pity of war and his cues both in text and word painting direct us to emphasise different considerations.



When following Et Exspecto with a score it is possible to focus on the details of pitch and rhythmic organisation and get embroiled in the kaleidoscopic changes of material. There are so many layers of linear formations subjected to ever varying rhythmic changes set within passages of percussive sounds and silence. Take a step away from the detail and we have music which flows, sometimes slowly or very slowly and sometimes with great rapidity. This is a characteristic of non-progressive harmony intensified by the absence of a regular pulse. The use of a constant beat does occur in Et Exspecto but it is retained for the final movement and appears in the percussion, the 6 gongs beating out semiquavers against the 3 tam-tams crotchets. Its restricted use provides the energy for a powerful conclusion. The melody in this section moves in steady crotchet and minims with the minims coming at the end of relatively short phrases, it is a modern view of organum, and very effective in its simplicity.

Moving further out again and the passages form very clearly defined sections of alternating textures, and in the fourth movement for example these take on a mirror formation. (ABACABACABA) Once we are at this macro level the music is simple and direct.



Are the cues for the audience alone, or are they a stimulus for the composer, or both? Could the work stand on its own without any other references? My view is that it could, but having been introduced to the cues it is impossible to forget that knowledge and now it is integrated into my understanding of the whole work and the man and his music.


The music may be heard at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f4qdJHatNM










5 comments:

  1. Messiaen was an amazing composer - he was so creative - much much more than the majority of his more famous students.

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  2. I've read with great attention and pleasure your posts about the musical cues - they are very interesting and stimulating.

    Undoubtely here you treat wiht a very complex matter in music. Perhaps the most difficult of all beacuse it belongs to the difficult-to-explain world of "meta-music" or philosophy of music. In this respect everything might be said of cues in music except for anything that can't be clearly explained by the author. So it's quite hard to point out the different implications that, as you yourself write in the final sentence, are involved in admitting those cues in the musical experience. The first is quite obvious and it's similar to some axioms of quantum physics: the moment you hear about a cue is the same moment you are deviated from listening to the music in a neutral mood. Of course this point is connected to all the similar ones and they all lead to the following question: is there a possbile neutral point of view in listening to music?

    For how long music theoreticians have discussed about this point?

    Of course not - this is my opinion - there cannot be a neutral listening as there cannot be a work of music that "stands on its own", using your words. Your splendid article is itself a clear example when you list the different sections titles as cues to their musical content. By doing so you state that the title is a cue and that the music content is a sort of deployment - unfolding is a more correct word perhaps? - of an extra-musical content (I should add: something that one could not tell in other way that in music because the artist has a sort of urgence of express those feelings or concepts or representations in his own personal use of world of musical sounds - but I would go out of the topic)
    This point is fundamental - always in my opinion - because when it comes to "serious" ***(a note below about the use of this word)*** music you come to a level of comprehending music as an art. Cues are fundamental in this respect, mostly obviously if they come from the author.
    I don't have the time and the space to go deeply in this matter but it's a very interesting one. a work of music cannot stands on its own and cannot be without any cue just because when you listen to that you are an individual with your history, your belives, your traditions, your knowlodge and so on and on. So any musical experience is permeated by cues.

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  3. Perhaps one can go further, saying that perhaps there are 4 kinds of cues in music,
    1. explicitly endogenous
    2. implicitly endougenous
    3. Implicitly exogenous
    4. explicitly exogenous

    1. an Example of explicitly endogenous cues is this work of Messiaen (by the way: how much beautiful is it?! it's unbelievably wonderful!)and, of course, every other cue explicitly given by the author
    2. example of implcitly endogenous cues could be a notorious fact occurred in author's life that led him to the creation of a particular work like the death of Mahler's daughter that led to some of the music of his 9th symphony or the italian tour Mendelsohnn made while writing his 4th symphony
    3. implicitly exogenous cues are the ones connected to the listener's belives and/feelings he has the first time (or the most significative time) he listens to a music. My parents love the song "Love is blue" because was the one played by my father with a guitar when they first met on a beach in 1968 - everybody has a special music in his/her heart that is connected to a particular moment of his/her life so it's pretty clear and easy to explain this implicitly exogenous cues. It's to be considered "implicitly" exogenous because the listener doesn't have a conscious experience that he is fullfilling the musical experience with HIS own cues. It's the phenomenon of "our song".
    4. an explicity exogenous cue is the one given by someone else other than the author and that is consciouly given, basing upon some kind of argument or some kind of event in which the music is involved. For example a journalist that says that music of the band Muse is the nephew of the progressive rock of the 70s without any claim of the band in this sense and based only on his own judgement. Examples are infinite: the titles given by posterity to some Beethoven sonatas or the prejudice around the music of Bruckner by his contemporaries that know him as a quite naive and almost ingenous person. Also I have in mind the way some classical pieces has totally changed their reception within both the experts and the non-expert after being included in some big blockbuster movie such as Wagner's Ride of the walkyrie in Apocalipse now or the R.Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra's beginning in 2001 Odissea nello spazio (translation: odissey in space?)

    I'd like to have more time to develope the argument - hope you find my approach interesting and worth a read

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  4. Some thoughts on Endogenous / Exogenous modes of interpretation
    After reading Martin Tylander's interesting comments, I was listening to ''the Hour Glass'' by Frank Bridge and I was having some difficulty in conjuring up images I thought the music was suggesting. I could readily appreciate the abstract beauty, musical sophistication and pure delight of listening to Frank Bridge’s music. But whatever images it conjured up for me had nothing to do with 1920 England. In order to further this idea, I decided to listen to Gustav Holst's “Egdon Heath”. In this wonderful piece the images were what I imagined from novels I have read, especially Thomas Hardy but none of these images were not mine as I experienced them in Somerset, Devon or anywhere else in the West Country.
    When I think about it, I do not see ladies and gentlemen in powdered wigs when I listen to Mozart or Bach, I do not hear carriages in Beethoven's music and I do not hear any of the environmental sounds of the early 20th-century. This is obvious, I may have heard the music attached to these images in films but in reality they are not part of my world. Although I would love to, I have never visited Japan, yet while listening to the pieces Ken posted in his Japanese art series, I could conjure up images that are very real. Similarly, the musical orders that are not in my vocabulary – such as maqam or raga do not sound alien.

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  5. Thoughts continued:
    It is not relevant whether one likes a piece or not, the images that are suggested belong to strongly formulated endogenous concepts that should be the framework we have and it leads to the organisation of music in our minds; but, these concepts are all exogenous. They are based on a lifetime of cumulated musical experiences. One might not be able to remember isolated childhood experiences, but the sounds that make up our world are the only references we have internally stored and available as musical experiences. For example, African rhythms often heard in Caribbean, jazz, Central American music is part of 20/21st century musical psyche and do not sound alien at all, even for those who never listened to that genre before. For example, someone hearing Calypso for the first time would not find it too far removed from his/her experience. But these rhythms played on traditional instruments provide much more exotic images. I think the answer to ''Why this is so?'' is obvious – then I ask ''is it?'' a silence follows…
    The thoughts above lead to the same questions raised by John Blacking in his book ''how musical is man?''. He asks the question ''in spite of the beautifully stated anti-war message of Britten's War Requiem, can all those who share his sentiments shared the intense message of his music? Does it really mean the same to the Russian, English, and German solo singers who made the first recording of the work?''. These two questions could lead to an investigation of the interrelationship between the cultural exogenous concepts of music forming the endogenous images. The answers are not so easy – yet such a fascinating enquiry…
    A piece I wrote after re-reading M. Duras' very famous book - Hiroshima mon Amour - starts with a fairly run-of-the-mill dance music followed by an explosion and its aftermath. The strands of the dance music are heard throughout the explosion and finally in its reduced form it reappears. To me. and to a number of people who listen to it, this represented calamity and the resilience of the human spirit. I'm referencing the music below in the hopes that our readers, especially from different nationalities would express their sentiments after listening to the piece. Any nationality would be welcome, but our Japanese friends are especially welcome to join the conversation.
    Aftershock Op. 60: A bomb or natural (volcano) explosion is a violent event with a
    seemingly random set of events following its occurrence. In reality, between the disruption
    and resumption of the ordinary, the events subsequent to the shock are reasonably wellorganised
    and roughly predictable. This is a musical exploration of an explosive event using
    ordinary musical instruments. The first minute of the work sets up the stage for the main
    event and its conclusion. The percussion instruments, a violin and a piano were matched by
    trial and error to produce the desired sounds, Scored for Piano, solo violin. Glockenspiel,
    timpani, and percussion ensemble consisting snare, tenor, taiko drums, orchestral Tom-toms,
    large and small gongs, tubular bells, and cymbals. It is about 4 minutes long. IMSLP 398999
    https://soundcloud.com/naesmen/aftershock-op-60

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