Le Merle noir

Le Merle noir ( German: The black Blackbird ) is a chamber work by the French composer Olivier Messiaen for flute and piano. Messiaen composed the piece in 1951 for an examination at the Paris Conservatory. The piece connects the creative birdsong and the twelve-tone music, thus sounds improvised despite the severe organizing principle of the genre.

The piece combines traditional elements, namely Messiaen's transcriptions of blackbird designs, and elements that are derived from twelve-tone rows. The structure of the piece matches the pattern AB -A' -B' - coda, the parts are by pauses clear. In the A- part and its varied repetition of the flute submits a lengthy solo, which is inspired by blackbird singing. In contrast to the A- B- components parts have more rhythmic structure. The final part, the coda is only partially influenced by the blackbird singing and melodies and rhythms are strongly influenced by the composition technique.

The piano begins with a short sequence of nine chromatic tones, consisting of five ascending and four descending notes. This motif is taken up several times, for example at the end of the first flute solos in ascending order, descending at the end of the second solo. At the beginning of the B section occurs the piano one with a phrase that is immediately adopted and expanded by the flute. This part is characterized by additives rhythm.

Paul Dukas, the teacher Messiaen, is to have his students motivated to listen to the birds. As Messiaen already been interested in bird song, this suggestion fell on fertile ground with him: "Your melodic twists, especially the blackbirds, excel in imagination the human imagination ." The study of the vocalizations of the birds was very formative for Messiaen's early work. With Le Merle noir, the ten -year-long phase, which Messiaen almost exclusively devoted to the birds singing began.