A Tale of Two Tunes

Stephen Soderberg

Recently in Essays & Endnotes: Continuing my analysis of Messiaen's Île de feu 1 & 2 under the blog post thread 'Broken Symmetries':

.....A Tale of Two Tunes.....

Île de feu 1 and Île de feu 2 were both composed in 1950 when Messiaen was at Tanglewood. Scholars have commented that the themes of the two pieces are related music-theoretically beyond sharing Papuan origins/flavors as suggested by Messiaen himself. But while much has been written about these two works, a great deal of it on the famous 'interversions' in Île de feu 2, I have found relatively little analysis that seals the claim about specific connections between the themes. There are, in fact, three structural relationships between the themes. I'm discussing them in three separate blog entries:

– Broken Symmetries 3.1: Rhythmic structure

– Broken Symmetries 3.2: Pitch content

– Broken Symmetries 3.3: Tonality, a.k.a. Strange attractors. [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]