Chapter XV: Enlargement of Foreign Notes, Upbeats and Terminations
Original: Pages 55–57 in Satterfield translation
Musical Examples:
Overview
Chapter XV reframes traditional nonharmonic tone categories—pedals, passing notes, appoggiature, and embellishments—by "enlarging" them from individual pitches into complete musical structures (groups) that possess their own internal rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic organization. Rather than treating dissonances as momentary decorations requiring resolution, Messiaen reconceives them as self-sufficient musical entities. The chapter culminates in an extended discussion of the upbeat-accent-termination complex, which Messiaen identifies as the most important and expressive combination of foreign notes in the classical style. This approach transforms surface-level harmonic detail into a principle of large-scale formal articulation.