The Apolitical as Political: Olivier Messiaen's Theology, Intellectual World, and Aesthetic Agenda in the 1930s

Abstract

Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) is a key figure in twentieth-century music, both for his musical compositions and his mentorship of such composers as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and even Quincy Jones. However, Messiaen’s own artistic identity is often contested: was he a musical innovator who hid insecurities behind obscure sacred references, or was he devoutly focused on communicating spiritual truth through music? Did he engage in the political skirmishes of French musical life, or was he apolitical, “a man apart”? This dissertation explores Messiaen’s emerging career in the 1930s, that perilous time between the conclusion of his studies at the Paris Conservatoire and the onset of World War II. With the benefit of new archival material made available at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, I revisit Messiaen’s scores from the 1930s to illuminate how theological, ideological, and aesthetic influences permeate his music. I argue that Messiaen’s oft-dismissed texts—titles, subtitles, poetry, and citations appearing in the musical scores—unlock important layers of meaning communicated by the arrangement of his various sonic materials. From fellow organist-improviser-composer Charles Tournemire, Messiaen learned techniques for commenting musically upon spiritual texts. The open-mindedness of his teacher, the agnostic Paul Dukas, appear in direct contradiction to Messiaen’s expressions of religious devotion but the Catholic theological tradition known as Ressourcement reconciles devotion and universalism. Rejecting a sacred-secular divide, Messiaen can make use of any borrowed ideas in the working out of his faith. However, Messiaen’s allegiance to the Ressourcement project had political consequences, often with the aim of transforming society via his music. Messiaen’s tenuous musical network, particularly Jeune France, benefitted from framing their endeavors as part of the vibrant generation of 1930s Nonconformist politics. Yet, they also had to temper their political language in order to preserve funding sources, critical support, and audience. These practical considerations account for Messiaen’s reluctance to publicly align with any theological or political group. Nevertheless, being “apolitical” and emphasizing the spiritual over the political was itself a political stance, especially in the context of interwar France. Messiaen turned to the work of Jacques and Raissa Maritain for an aesthetic method to communicate his faith’s most sacred truths. Jacques Maritain published The Primacy of the Spiritual in 1927 to reassert his commitment to faith over worldly politics, and the Maritains were involved in the creation of the journals Esprit (Nonconformism) and La vie intellectuelle (a Ressourcement-affiliated journal). The Maritains explored the potential of a Catholic poetics to commune not with the Freudian subconscious but directly with the soul and thus God. For Messiaen, son of poet Cecile Sauvage, the choice of a surrealist aesthetic functions as a mode of resistance to a spiritually deprived France; as Pierre Bourdieu asserts in Language and Power, struggles over language are fundamentally symbolic power struggles. The dissertation concludes by examining the Quartet for the End of Time (1940–41), one of Messiaen’s most recognizable and analyzed works. I observe that the theological, ideological, and aesthetic context of the 1930s and the analytical strategies developed in this project offer new insights into how the Quartet communicates spiritual meaning, demonstrating the analytical applicability of the dissertation framework to studies of Messiaen’s mature style.