Pre-order my new book! UK: [ Ссылка ] US: [ Ссылка ] More info: [ Ссылка ]

* Many composers over the years have claimed to experience synaesthesia, a condition where one sense is activated by experiencing another, and for music, this normally means that when someone hears sounds, they see colours. Scriabin, Liszt and Ligeti are some well-known examples of synesthetes, but among these composers, there is only one who truly dedicated his life to exploring the colours of music – the 20th century French composer, Oliver Messiaen. In this essay, I explore Messiaen’s music and sound-world through the lens of colour and shape, using an ambitious and wide-reaching project by Håkon Austbø as the basis for my discussion.

VISUALIZING VISIONS: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MESSIAEN’S COLOURS, Håkon Austbø, Ricardo del Pozo: [ Ссылка ]

Watch my Kandinsky video here: [ Ссылка ]

Thank you to Juan Brizuela for providing the Spanish subtitles.

▶ Support my channel: [ Ссылка ]
▶ Subscribe: [ Ссылка ]
____________________
▶ Website: [ Ссылка ]
▶ Twitter: [ Ссылка ]

FURTHER WATCHING
Messiaen on Debussy and Colour: [ Ссылка ]
Messiaen - a life in colour: [ Ссылка ]

FURTHER RESEARCH
Color Harmonies and Color Spaces Used by Olivier Messiaen in Couleurs de la cité céleste [Paul E Dworak]: [ Ссылка ]
Messiaen's Synesthesia: The Correspondence between Colour and Sound Structure in His Music [Bernard]: [ Ссылка ]
Messiaen's Chord Tables: Ordering the Disordered [Cheong Wai-Ling]: [ Ссылка ]
Messiaen's Technique and Visions [Ng Mei Chu]: [ Ссылка ]

Thank you to my all my amazing supporters on Patreon, but in particular to my Perfect Fifth supporters: David Ball, Pavel Makeenko, Max Braun, Hamish Madden, Andrew Wong, David Wiley

свернуть