Chapter VIII: Melody and Melodic Contours
Original: Pages 31–33 in Satterfield translation
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Overview
This chapter initiates the treatise's melodic section by establishing fundamental principles of interval choice and melodic contour construction. Messiaen begins by reaffirming melody's supremacy—it is the noblest element of music and the principal aim of investigation, with rhythm remaining pliant and giving precedence to melodic development. He invokes Paul Dukas's pedagogical principle that harmony must be chosen to be "true"—wanted by the melody and its outcome. The chapter then systematically explores intervallic preferences (descending augmented fourths and major sixths), melodic cadential formulas derived from historical models (Moussorgsky, Grieg, Debussy), folk song influences (Russian and French), plainchant contours, and Hindu ragas. This synthetic approach—drawing from Western art music, folk traditions, liturgical repertoire, and non-Western sources—demonstrates Messiaen's method of historical synthesis applied to melody, paralleling his approach to rhythm in Chapter II. The chapter functions as a catalog of melodic resources rather than a systematic theory, identifying preferred intervals, characteristic contours, and source materials that inform Messiaen's melodic practice.