Olivier Messiaen - Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps

This deep, achingly beautiful chamber masterpiece was born in spite of the ugliness of fascism. Its eight movements for clarinet, piano, cello and violin gain new layers of meaning upon digesting the context in which they were realised. The composer based Quatuor pour la fin du temps on an apocalyptic tale from Revelation 10:6 where an Angel of the Apocalypse descends to Earth to announce the end of time. But it was written during the Second World War while Messiaen, a medical auxiliary in the French Army, was imprisoned in a German prisoner-of-war camp. There he went on to premiere the work to an audience of about 400 prisoners and guards with the help of three inmates and a sympathetic guard. Equipped with this knowledge one cannot help draw parallels between the biblical prophecy and the real, imminent apocalypse driven by Nazi forces that was being felt first-hand by the composer and players. And yet, as musicologist Chris McMurty points out in his extensive analysis of the work, it "has nothing to do with war, or prison, or man's inhumanity to man. This piece is entirely about the work of God and the glory of Jesus. There is no darkness here. There is no bitterness. There is no rage. Instead there is power, light, transcendence, ecstasy, and joy eternal." By its very nature this most innovative composition is anti-fascist. Through sound alone it briefly dispelled Nazi tyranny at the source and, through its pre-eminent position in the canon of 20th Century music, continues to oppose fascism's violence and victimhood with universal love.
Russell Cuzner