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NEVER WAS I LISTENED
TO WITH SUCH RAPT
ATTENTION AND
COMPREHENSION
QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME (1940),
OLIVIER MESSIAEN
E
arly in his career, Olivier
Messiaen espoused a
musical style that embraced
sensuality in music, forming a
group called La Jeune France
(Young France) with several other
young composers, in opposition to
the neoclassicism of Stravinsky
and others who looked back to
18th-century works for inspiration.
While Messiaen’s music was
imbued with references to his
Roman Catholic faith, his style was
avant-garde. He experimented both
with rhythm and what he termed“modes of limited transposition,”
such as the whole-tone scale, which
can only be transposed up a tone
before the same sequence of notes
recurs. Messiaen had studied at the
Paris Conservatoire with a series of
brilliant teachers who inspired him
to explore Greek and Hindu modes,
while also instilling in him sound
principles of harmony, counterpoint,
and composition, and encouraging
his gift for improvisation.Apocalyptic inspiration
Within a year of the outbreak of
World War II, Messiaen was taken
as a prisoner of war and held at a
camp in Silesia (now in Poland).
Among his fellow inmates, he found
three professional musicians, a
clarinetist, violinist, and cellist,
whose talents he could combine
with his own piano keyboard skills.
Embracing this rare instrumental
combination, Messiaen wrote his
Quartet for the End of Time, which
premiered in the camp itself.
The composer’s deep Christian
beliefs are clearly indicated in his
extensive Preface to the score,
which includes quotations from
the Book of Revelation. Its title
was a homage to the Angel of
the Apocalypse, who raises hisIN CONTEXT
FOCUS
Spiritual music in the
20th centuryBEFORE
1938 Devout Catholic Francis
Poulenc’s Four Penitential
Motets marks the composer’s
return to sacred music.AFTER
1962 Benjamin Britten’s
War Requiem combines the
antiwar poems of Wilfred
Owen with the traditional
form of the Requiem Mass.1971 British composer Sir
John Tavener writes Celtic
Requiem, an early example
of his many religious works
embodying a sense of
timelessness.1981 Polish composer Henryk
Górecki writes Totus Tuus to
celebrate Pope John Paul II’s
third official visit to his
native Poland.My faith is the grand drama
of my life. I’m a believer, so I
sing words of God ... I give
bird songs to those who
dwell in cities ... and
paint colors for those
who see none.
Olivier MessiaenUS_282-283_Messiaen.indd 282 26/03/18 1:01 PM