“THE CHARM OF IMPOSSIBILITIES”

Chapter:

CHAPTER 4 Extinguishing the “Petty ‘I’ ” (Transcendentalism, I)

Source:

MUSIC IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Messiaen named and described his “modes of limited transposition” for the first time in 1935 in the preface to La nativité du Seigneur (“The nativity of our lord”), a book of nine “meditations” for organ on passages from sacred texts, to be played during the celebration of Mass. Only the name that Messiaen gave his “modes” was new. The concept had been familiar as such for almost a century, ever since Liszt had made his first systematic experiments with symmetrical cycles of thirds and scales derived from them. Messiaen had in good scholastic fashion merely carried the process of systematization, begun by Liszt and already maximalized by Scriabin, to the point of theoretical exhaustion.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 4 Extinguishing the “Petty ‘I’ ” (Transcendentalism, I)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 May. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-004010.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 4 Extinguishing the “Petty ‘I’ ” (Transcendentalism, I). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-004010.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 4 Extinguishing the “Petty ‘I’ ” (Transcendentalism, I)." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-004010.xml