ABSTRACT
Not all music inspires an ascent to the divine: Augustine gives particular aesthetic criteria for well-ordered music that allows for spiritual contemplation. If Augustine’s own aesthetic conditions were supplied by the metrics of the Ambrosian chant tradition of the fourth and fifth century, his general observations are remarkably applicable to Messiaen’s own employment of metrics. One of the techniques that recur in the Quatre études is the suspension of rhythmic or metric periodicity within certain tightly constructed and somewhat hermetic phrases. The interaction between strong metric motion and ambiguous, nonprogressive moments is in constant play. The durational proportions illustrate this multi-stable situation. The opening phrase is repeated in variation a number of times in the etude. Each time, different musical elements affect how the metric relations among durational values suggest or suppress directionality.
