Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) has been criticized for harmonic inconsistency in the way he juxtaposes harsh or complex dissonances in the same piece as consonant sounding harmonies. The criticism is misconceived because, however consonant or dissonant the harmony, Messiaen always thinks of it in terms of timbre or colour. Messiaen has frequently spoken of colour-associations in his music. He is not the first composer, of course, to associate colours with sounds but, whereas others have done so in a somewhat arbitrary or oversimplified way by associating colours with particular notes or keys, it is quite evident from Messiaen's discussion of the matter that he perceives colour-sound relationships in a much more complex way than this. He speaks with absolute conviction, and it is quite apparent that the association of colour and sound is a valid experience for him. Mode 2 of limited transposition, for instance, suggests certain shades of violet, blue and purple, and Mode 3 brings to mind orange with red and green and spots of gold, and also a milky-white with iris reflections like an opal." As a consequence of these associations, one can speak of "colour" chords, and a melody which has harmonies associated with it could be said to be "coloured" by these harmonies rather than "harmonized" in a classical sense."♪
After having examined the colour-music association through different scopes, let us now turn to the reader is invited to find out about Messiaen’s own point of view on his condition. (The following part can also be omitted and the reader can proceed to the analysis of Theme et Variations).The text below contains excerpts from interviews with Olivier Messiaen:
"Stained glass is one of the most wonderful creations of man. You are overwhelmed. And I think this is beginning of Paradise, because in Paradise we are overwhelmed"♪
C.S. You just mentioned that your new treatise will also concern the role played by color in your musical approach. That says something about this element's importance, and it requires some explanation.
O.M. For a composer, there are different ways of conceiving color.
The first and most interesting is the one we mentioned earlier, which is to say, the sound-color relationship perceived physiologically. I told you about my friend Blanc-Gatti, the Swiss painter who suffered from physiological synesthesia. I own five of his paintings, all, unfortunately, only hastily executed. He sets down on canvas a very brief, very fleeting moment of colors perceived in this manner, and the colors turn, shift, and interact exactly like sounds. These paintings clearly reveal a certain aspect of the link between color and sound. It's extraordinary that, not having the blessed malady of my painter friend, I am all the same affected by a sort of synesthesia, more in my mind than in my body, that allows me, when I hear music and also when I read it, to see inwardly, in my mind's eye, colors that move with the music; and I vividly sense these colors, and sometimes I've precisely indicated their correspondence in my scores. Obviously, one should be able to prove this relationship scientifically, but I cannot.
C.S. Do you see these colors or do you imagine them?
O.M. I see them inwardly; this is not imagination, nor is it a physical phenomenon. It's an inward reality.
C.S. So, when a door creaks, you see a color?
O.M. No, the correspondence relates only to genuine music, with melodies, chords, rhythms, complexes of sounds, and durations.
C.S. And you've always been subject to this rather exceptional phenomenon?
O.M. I think so.
C.S. But you try to translate colors in your music?
O.M. I do indeed try to translate colors into music; for me, certain found complexes and sonorities are linked to complexes of color, and fuse them with full knowledge of this.
C.S. Have you ever drawn inspiration for a work from the colors of a painting?
O.M. No, never. I repeat that, for me, certain sonorities are linked to certain complexes of colors, and I use them like colors, juxtaposing them and putting them in relief one against the other, as a painter enhances one color with its complement.
C.S. Have you never wanted to paint?
O.M.In my childhood, when I was reading Shakespeare, I did devise some stage sets in a way that relates to my love for stained glass. For the backdrop, I used cellophane which I found in candy boxes or pastry wrappers, and I'd paint the cellophane with colored ink or watercolors; then I'd place my décors in front of a windowpane, and the sun passing through the colored cellophane would produce luminous and colorful projections on the floor of my little stage as well as on the dramatis personae. Thus I managed to transform my set, just as an electrician controls a spotlight in a theater.
C.S. In sum, would your personal theory then be that of total freedom?
O.M. The word "freedom" is foreign to me. "Hierarchy," too.
Hierarchy of what? Freedom from what? The classic tonalities had a tonic. The ancient modes had a final. My modes have neither a tonic nor a final; they are colors. The classical chords have attractions and resolutions. My chords are colors. They engender intellectual colors, which evolve along with them.