Olivier Messiaen (1908-92)
Quatour pour le fin du temps (1940-41)
Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time was written in, perhaps, the most incongruous spot any great score has been composed in: an unheated barracks in Stalag VIII-A, a German prisoner-of-war camp, during the second winter of World War 2. Drafted into the French army after the outbreak of hostilities and captured in June of 1940, Messiaen found himself interned under the watchful eye of a sympathetic German guard, Karl-Albert Brüll, a music-lover keen to supply his charge with a quiet space and supplies.
So Messiaen wrote this mystical quartet for the instruments available in the camp (clarinet, violin, cello, and piano) in a setting that’s arguably among the least conducive for creative work. And yet, the Quartet for the End of Time, which bears an inscription to the biblical “Angel of the Apocalypse, who lifts his hand toward heaven, saying, ‘There shall be time no longer,’” unequivocally expresses its composers devout Catholic faith and it stands as one of the most compelling chamber scores penned during the 20th century. It’s truly a remarkable piece.
The Quartet’s eight movements include a peculiar mix of solos, duets, and even a trio; only four incorporate the entire ensemble. This reflects the way Messiaen worked on the piece: indeed, before there was a Quartet for the End of Time, there were a grab-bag of short pieces for musician-friends Messiaen was on the front (and captured) with, plus reworkings of older compositions. Only after he was installed at Stalag VIII-A did the present composition fully come into focus.
In discussions of the Quartet, much is often (rightly) made of Messiaen’s concept of “time” as expressed in it. Indeed, when Messiaen wrote the piece, he had already begun to radically rethink his approach to time and rhythm; his interest increasingly lay in exploring the concept of what one writer calls “rhythms outside of time” and, in the Quartet, there are several ways he went about this. One was through using what Messiaen called “non-retrogradable (or palindromic) rhythms” – that is, a combination of rhythmic and harmonic progressions which, when played out, eventually (and subtly) cycle back to the same starting point. Often, Messiaen used this technique to express the infinite, and there’s a fine example of his doing just that in some of the writing for piano and cello during the Quartet’s first movement.
Another device Messiaen adopted came from Hindu music, namely using what are called “additive rhythms.” In this technique he could either lengthen (or shorten) individual notes in a regular rhythmic pattern, interpolate a short note into the same, or lengthen (or shorten) every note in a rhythmic cell (or some combination of all three processes). The effect is, again, subtle but pronounced: many of the musical elements at work may be familiar, but they move in unexpected (and non-Western) ways. You can hear an example of additive rhythms in, among other places, the Quartet’s sixth movement.
Each of these devices helps give the Quartet it’s singular sound world. But, at the end of the day, the Quartet exceeds them: it is, after all, a deeply expressive piece of music, filled with intimations of nature, love, beauty, and divinity – in Messiaen’s hands they’re all intertwined – and marked by sumptuously lush lyricism. All this, for Messiaen, pointed towards a single goal: Eternity. And it’s a tantalizing vision of that very thing that the piece, in its best performances, realizes.
© Jonathan Blumhofer
Reproduction Rights: This program note may be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with a credit to the author.