Classical music composed in the years following World War II is known for its high level of experimentalism. With countless new techniques for composition being developed, composers began to place less emphasis on more traditional “rules” and sources of inspiration. The generally more sterile and atonal works of this period feature broader harmonic and rhythmic characteristics than earlier twentieth century works, but lack significant influence from traditional sources such as national culture. A notable exception is Leonard Bernstein, and in particular, his fundamentally American operatic musical West Side Story. In West Side Story, Bernstein leverages vernacular music and culture to create a work that has deep roots in the American experience. In contrast, serialist works from Messiaen and Boulez, mathematically and architecturally-inspired works by Xenakis, and explorations by Cage into creating music with everyday objects utilize more scientifically than culturally-oriented sources. While works such as West Side Story show that national character can still be a meaningful attribute in classical music written after 1945, the prevailing musical trends contradict the ability for national culture to influence a given composer’s works. More specifically, this period’s approaches to composition are more scientifically than culturally based, and as a result they lead to works that lack cultural ties with their place of composition. Olivier Messiaen is known for his avant-garde, largely atonal compositions, and as a teacher of Boulez and Xenakis, among others, he had a broad impact on music of the late 1940s, 50s and 60s, extending beyond his own compositions. Through Messiaen’s experiments with total serialism and birdsong, we can see that the focus onscientific approaches to composition after 1945 diminishes national character as an influence on classical music.

In 1949, Messiaen laid the foundation for a new compositional technique known as total serialism with his piano work Scale of Durations and Dynamics. Each note of the scale is assigned to a particular duration, dynamic level, and articulation, to be used for every instance of that pitch throughout the piece. While total serialism does leave some room for artistic freedom, its strict rules impose significant constraints on the composer. Rather than begin with melodic thoughts and develop them into a harmonious arrangement of music, the composer must select a given predefined combination of pitch, duration, dynamic, and articulation, significantly restricting the ability to create culturally relevant music. Without any cultural context, and in limiting the potential to create nationally-influenced melodic material by restricting certain pitches to certain durations, the composer must take a scientific approach to writing, rather than a more traditional, freeform and culturally-influenced artistic approach. Messiaen’s early venture into total serialism inspired others, particularly Boulez, to further develop form, and the resulting music similarly lacks the cultural context necessary to hold a national character.

As early as 1941, in Quartet for the End of Time, Messiaen experimented with music inspired by bird songs. Initially, birds provided inspiration for simple melodic material. But as Messiaen continued developing this new technique in the fifties, multiple fragmented lines frequently became interspersed to create complex polyphony. His arrangements of different bird-melodies feature both harmonic and rhythmic elements stemming from the music’s natural roots. One notable change is the placement of all melodic material around a common key center, although this component is somewhat masked by frequent atonal harmonic sections. In many ways, the bird-inspired music follows a similar compositional process to works featuring traditional or folk music from a given locale, with the composer first collecting melodies, then developing the material around the traditional themes in a modern style. But rather than leveraging the intensely national character implicit in works that utilize vernacular music, Messiaen relies heavily upon the character of his chosen combination of birds, or at least upon their aural communications. In The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross notes that “in a way, this new technique could be compared to [John] Cagean chance; Messiaen surrendered control of his music to outside forces” (492). In surrendering control over the direct source for much of his melodic material, Messiaen relies entirely on the cultural characteristics of the birds’ music, rather than the intrinsically nationalistic characteristics of traditional melodies or original melodies composed within a particular cultural context.

The greatest birdsong work in scope is the lengthy piano cycle Catalog of Birds (1956-58). In this piece, Messiaen builds on his previous incorporation of polyphonic bird-inspired melodic lines to construct landscapes of scenic locations in France from birdsongs, incorporating other innovative harmonic techniques from his earlier works as well. Being directly inspired by scenic French landscapes, and even featuring music of French bird species in earlier works, would seem to imply a meaningfully French characteristic in the music. And while particular scenic landscapes as an inspirational source would likely be intrinsically French in character, the bird element poses the fundamental challenge of lacking direct* human influence. [* for the purpose of this discussion, it is posited that human influences on birds likely exist but in a manner substantially independent of cultural nationalism]. Variations in human culture cannot may not directly influence birdsongs in any place, rendering the birdsongs as a whole relatively international in character. Therefore, the use of national scenes and birds does not retain a national characteristic in Messiaen’s works because the human culture that traditionally causes national influence in classical music does not influence the birds that create the melodic basis for Messiaen’s birdsong compositions.

Classical music since 1945 is highly experimental, often times being based on specific rules or on everyday sounds that wouldn’t have previously been considered music. Messiaen explored new scientific approaches to composition in his early application of total serialism theory and in his extensive adaptation of birdsongs in his works. In both cases, national culture and historical tradition are not accounted for in the new techniques, while more freeform works from prior periods account for cultural context with their more artistic approach. Therefore, Messiaen’s experiments with total serialism and birdsong show that the focus on scientific approaches to composition after 1945 diminishes national character as an influence on classical music.

This essay was originally written for the course "Music and Culture" at the University of Southern California.