And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven . . . and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever . . . that there should be time no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel . . . the mystery of God should be finished. (KJV, Revelation 10, 1-7)
Conceived and composed during my imprisonment, Quatuor pour la fin du temps was first performed at the Stalag VIII/A on January 15,1941, by the violinist Jean Le Boulaire, the clarinetist Henri Akoka, the cellist Etienne Pasquier and with myself at the piano. It was directly inspired by this quote from the Apocalypse. Its musical language is mainly ethereal, spiritual and catholic. Achieving a sort of tonal ubiquity in melody and harmony, it draws the listener closer to eternity in space or in infinity. Special rhythms, beyond any measure, contribute significantly to distancing the concept of time
(however these remain an attempt and almost a stutter if one thinks of the overwhelming greatness of the subject). It is formed by eight movements. Why? Seven is the perfect number. The six days of creation sanctified by the divine Sabbath; the seventh day of rest extends to eternity and becomes the eighth of the unfailing light, of the unchanging peace.
- Olivier Messiaen
Click for Messiaen’s own programme notes.
Rebecca Rischin has written a warm narrative, For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet. Click for availability at [BNQ].
Tashi thirty years later(read)
Important: Anyone may listen to the Luna Nova New Music Ensemble version (scroll down to the bottom of the page). To listen to the Tashi version, Imeem registration/login may possibly be required [explanation]. (Click here)
Le Quatuor pour la fin du temps performed by Tashi: Peter Serkin, piano; Ida Kavafian, violin; Fred Sherry, cello; Richard Stoltzman, clarinet.
1st movement: Liturgy of crystal (Listen)
The birds wake up between three and four o’clock in the morning: a blackbird or a nightingale, surrounded by musical pollen and a halo of trills lost high up in the tree-tops. Transpose this to the religious plane, and you will find yourself hearing the harmonious silence of heaven.
2nd movement: Vocalise for the angel who announces the end of time (Listen)
The first and third parts (very short) evoke the power of this mighty angel, his head crowned with a rainbow and dressed in a cloud, standing with one foot on the sea and the other on land. The impalpable celestial harmonies form the middle (part). On the piano, soft cascades of blue-orange chords, surrounding the almost plainsong recitative of the violin and cello with their distant carillon.
3rd movement: Abyss of the birds For solo clarinet. (Listen)
The abyss is time itself with all its sadness and weariness. The birds are the opposite of time: they are our desire for light, for stars and rainbows and songs of rejoicing!
4th movement: Interlude (Listen)
Scherzo, more outward in character than the other movements, but nevertheless linked to them by a number of melodic ‘recollections’.
5th movement: In praise of the eternity of Jesus (Listen)
Jesus is considered here to represent the Word of the Lord. A long and infinitely slow phrase played by the cello glorifies with love and reverence the eternity of this powerful yet tender Word, whose years shall never come to an end. The melody spreads out majestically in a kind of distant landscape that is tender and sovereign. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in God, and the Word was God.
6th movement: Furious dance for the seven trumpets (Listen)
Rhythmically speaking, this piece is the most characteristic of the whole series. Playing in unison, the four instruments imitate the sound of gongs and trumpets (the six trumpets of the Apocalypse, each of which heralds a new catastrophe, and the trumpet of the seventh angel, announcing the consummation of the mystery of the Lord). Use of added values, augmented or diminished rhythms and irreversible rhythms. Music made of stone; formidable, sonorous granite; an irresistible movement of steel, of huge blocks of purple fury, of icy ecstasy. Listen in particular to the terrible fortissimo of the theme achieved by the augmentation and the change of the register of the theme’s different notes, towards the end of this movement.
7th movement: Tangle of rainbows for the angel who announces the end of time (Listen)
Certain passages from the second movement reappear here. The angel appears full of power, and above all the rainbow that covers it (the rainbow as a symbol of peace, of wisdom, and of every vibration of sound and light). In my dreams I hear and see ordered chords and melodies, familiar shapes and colours, then, after this transitory stage, I pass into the unreal, and am surrounded and penetrated in a state of ecstasy by superhuman sounds and colours. These swords of fire, this lava flowing blue and orange, these sudden stars: behold the tangled maze of the rainbows!
8th movement: In praise of the immortality of Jesus (Listen)
An expansive violin solo, a pendant to the cello solo in the fifth movement. Why a second song of praise? This one specifically addresses the second aspect of Jesus, namely His human aspect, the Word that has become flesh, resurrected immortal in order to give us life. The song of praise is all love. Its slow ascent to the highest point is man’s ascent to his God, it’s the ascent of the Son God to His Father, it’s the ascent of the creature made divine to Paradise.
Let me finish by repeating what I said before: all this is no more than a stammering attempt, if one thinks of the overwhelming grandeur of the subject!
Olivier Messiaen