1. We wish to thank George Benjamin, Peter Bloom, Bernadette Brick, Nicolas Donin, Katherine Hambridge, Catherine Hughes, Jann Pasler, Alain Poirier, and the anonymous readers of this Journal for sharing their thoughts and advice during the preparation of this article. Our research has been supported by grants from the Fondation des Treilles, the Paul Sacher Stiftung, and the Bourses des Muses. The brief passages of this study that are reworked from two earlier articles by Balmer and Murray, “Repenser la réception” and “Jules Massenet,” are indicated where they occur.
2. Messiaen, Traité, tome 6, “Avant-propos,” xiii (Without doubt, we are beginning to understand the immense debt owed to the great liberator of modern music). This “Avant-propos” to the Debussy tome of the Traité, Tome 6, was originally written by Messiaen for the Japanese celebrations of Debussy's centennial in 1962. Translations are ours unless otherwise indicated.
3. Messiaen's Traité was published in seven tomes, one of them in two volumes. The French words “tome” and “volume” are used slightly differently from their English counterparts, “tome” denoting a unit of knowledge that contains a complete discussion of a distinct domain, “volume” referring to a physical bound book. Given that Messiaen scholars will be familiar with this usage in relation to the Traité, we have decided to retain the term “tome” here.
4. Taruskin, Early Twentieth Century, 229. Hereafter Technique de mon langage musical will be referred to as “Technique.” First published in 1944 in two separate volumes of text and musical examples respectively, it was republished as a single volume in 1999. Throughout these notes we make reference primarily to John Satterfield's English translation of 1956, citing it as “The Technique.” On the rare occasions when we cite Technique in these notes rather than The Technique we are referring to the French edition of 1999.
5. On the importance of Technique in the education of various composers, see Barraqué, Écrits, 58; Boulez, Orientations, 412; Cazé, “Les américains chantent,” 99; Deliège, Cinquante ans, 27–31; Goehr, Finding the Key, 42; and Lachenmann, Écrits et entretiens, 194.