ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Messiaen's harmonies in descending order of pitch total; pitch-class set labels will be used to identify harmonies, but at no point will set theory otherwise be applied to Messiaen's music. Messiaen's self-analyses refer only sporadically to serial procedures, and the direct influence of the Second Viennese School was minimal. The identification of Messiaen's harmonies requires a clear strategy to avoid the process of analysis becoming unwieldy and even impractical. Pitch-class set theory has previously been applied to Messiaen's music, the most notable work being Allen Forte's 'Messiaen's Chords'. Whilst Forte dissects many harmonies, the fundamental drawback of his approach is a lack of engagement with Messiaen's aesthetic and the composer's many technical idiosyncrasies. In order to create an analytical methodology sufficient to analyse Messiaen's compositions successfully, sets greater than eight notes need to be accounted for. The theory proposed above needs to be integrated into an approach encompassing all harmonies within the range 6-12 notes.
