'Miroir Fluide': Messiaen, Debussy, and Cyrano's 'Synaesthetic' Bird

Abstract

The critical influence of Debussy’s music on Messiaen’s artistic development is widely acknowledged, but the more specific question as to how it helped shape Messiaen’s sound-world has not been addressed in any depth. Volume VI of Messiaen’s Traité de rythme, de couleur et d’ornithologie (2001), which compiles his analyses of Debussy’s music, is one of the best sources for such an investigation. Taking a cue from the notion of a ‘miroir fluide’, which was cited by Messiaen from Cyrano de Bergerac (1620–55) in Traité VI, this essay explores how the latter may be read metaphorically along the same line. Since Messiaen was less wary about how his discourse might affect others’ perception of him as a composer in Traité VI, the latter throws as much light on Debussy’s as on his own music.

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