Following the death of French composer, pianist, and pedagogue Paul Dukas, Revue musicale director Henry Prunières asked several of Dukas's former students contribute short piano pieces to be published in the May/June issue as a "tombeau" or tribute to their maître. The group of eulogizers included Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Rodrigo, Florent Schmidt, and Olivier Messiaen, among others. Messiaen's tribute set itself apart somewhat from the rest; while many had the attitude of fond remembrance or nostalgia, Messiaen's tombeau took the tone of the furious Dylan Thomas poem. The composer himself described it as "static, solemn, and bare, like a huge block of stone." The Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas, like many of Messiaen's compositions, is built upon Modes of Limited Transposition. This refers to the use of non-diatonic scales that are constructed of a repeating series of intervals, such as all whole steps or alternating whole- and half-steps. Such scales are considered limited in their transpositions in that starting the scale on different pitches will result in the same overall pitch content. For example, a whole-tone scale (comprised of all whole-steps) has only two transpositions: one of them, no matter what note begins it, covers one set of whole steps; the other covers the notes between those of the first. Messiaen rarely uses modes as simple as these, though the principle still applies. In the case of Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas, the composer bases the work on a nine-note scale made of three overlapping and identical interval groups. Each group is made of a whole step followed by two half steps: C-D-E flat-E; E-F#-G-A flat; A flat-B flat-B-C. As can be seen here, the pitch content of the scale is the same whether starting on C, E, or A flat. Messiaen-who occasionally described the spectrum of colors that his mind's ear associated with musical gestures, lines, and harmonies-heard the mode used in Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas as "glimmers of orange, white, and gold." If that is true, these are not shades or brushstrokes of color, but rather giant, searing swaths, perhaps presaging those less-than-gentle sunsets (an inevitable symbol of mourning) over the red Utah deserts, a scene that would later inspire the composer to pen Des canyons aux étoiles. Virtually every gesture in the tombeau is large and unwieldy, and only two layers of texture can be distinguished: slow, ham-fisted chords in the right hand punctuated by deep repercussions in the bass. The construction of the mode leaves open the possibility for tonal implications, and an occasional passage will take on the faint shape of some recognizable progression. Even then, however, the result is increased tension: Messiaen's twisting chromatic lines continually tumble into an eternally unresolved dominant seventh. The work ends with perfunctory inconclusiveness, on a simple half-step figure across several parallel octaves. Knowing Messiaen's devout religious faith and his frequent treatment of sacred subjects, it is tempting to look for symbols of transcendence, redemption, and immortality in a work of this nature. If something of this sort is present in the inner workings of the piece, it is concealed from the lay listener. The Pièce pour le tombeau de Paul Dukas seems dominated by the altogether earthly feelings of loss and absence.



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