The creative intentions of Olivier Messiaen religion outlooks

Straipsnyje nurodyti objektyvūs ir subjektyvūs O. Messiaeno religinės pasaulėžiūros formavimosi faktoriai, akivaizdžiai nulėmę jo jaunystės metų kūrybą. Charakterizuojami penktojo dešimtmečio sakraliniai ir egzotinio pobūdžio kompozitoriaus kūriniai, iškeliant originalius jo muzikos raiškos ypatumus, atskleidžiant glaudžias religines sąsajas. Straipsnyje aptariami O. Messiaeno vėlyvojo periodo sakraliniai kūriniai, kuriuose vienijamos skirtingos sferos: religinė, egzotinė ir „paukščių“ (panteistinė). Akcentuojant O. Messiaeno kūrybinio stiliaus originalumą, pabrėžiami saviti kūrybiniai ieškojimai, tiksliai ir meniškai įspūdingai įprasminantys muzikoje amžinąsias krikščionybės tiesas. Savo pasaulinės reikšmės sakralinę muziką skleisdamas ne tiktai bažnyčioje, bet ir užsienio šalių didžiosiose koncertų salėse, sekuliarios visuomenės terpėje, O. Messiaenas atsakingai vykdė evangelinį tarnavimą.Olivier Messiaen (b. 1908, d. 1992) is a composer who stands alone in the history of music. He formed and created his own totally individual music style, coming not from any particular school or style. He was, taking rhythmic ideas from India (deci tala), ancient Greece and the old Orient countries. Messiaen spent a great deal of time in the study of its rhythmic elements and their possible uses, as well as to clarify their symbolism. His “added value” technique (adding the same duration to each element of a rhytm) is an example of constant augmentation. It was applying these methods that O. Messiaen came across the nonretrogradable rhythms which play a very important part in his works. The composer studied western rhythms, most importantly, I. Stravinsky and C. Debussy. Messiaen’s harmony is equally individual: combines tonality, atonality, modality and serialism. Central to Messiaen’s harmonic technique are the “modes of limited transposition”. His concept of colour is completely unique. Messiaen has often stated that he sees colours when writing or listening music. He composes sounds just as a painter mixes his colours, and he is aware of the importance of both instrumentation and harmonic structure in producing his colours. His technique gives Messiaen’s writing for the piano a completely new range of colour, “a rainbow”, as he calls it. The functional aspect of timbre in Messiaen’s music is most important. He used timbre for essential structural purposes: tone – colour is as important as pitch and duration. His music may be divided into a four periods: 1) religion (up to the “Harawi” song; 2) “exotic” (1945–1949); 3) the “birdsong” (1951–1958); 4) “synthesis”, last period. The single most important driving force in his musical creations was his devout Catholic faith. He insisted: “I am a composer because I love music and a Christian because I believe”