Quatuor pour la fin du Temps

Liturgie de cristal: bien modéré, en poudroiement harmonieux

Vocalise, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps: robuste, modéré

Abîme des oiseaux: lent, expressif et triste

Intermède: décidé, modéré, un peu vif

Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus: infiniment lent, extatique

Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes: décidé, vigoureux,

granatique, un peu vif

Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps: rêveur,

presque lent

Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus: extrêmement lent et tendre, extatique

Interned in Stalag VIII at Görlitz in Silesia in 1940, Messiæn wrote for three fellow musician-prisoners a short scherzo for violin, clarinet and cello with one string missing. An attractive little piece, not least because of the briefly Ravel-like theme introduced by cello with pizzicato accompaniment on the violin, it must also have seemed slightly eccentric with its unisons at the beginning, its patches of bird song on clarinet and its winding syncopations. However that may be, it was so well received as to lead to the composition, for the same performers together with Messiaen himself, of the Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (Quartet for the End of Time) in which it is now incorp­orated as the fourth movement, Intermède.

The Quatuor was an act of faith on Messiæn’s part in more ways than one. On the practical level, although there was no piano in the camp at the time, he wrote a piano part for six of the eight movements. On the spiritual level, it was inspired by a passage in the Apocalypse which he quotes at the beginning of the score: I saw a mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rain­bow was upon his head… He lifted up his hand to heaven and sware by him that liveth for ever…that there should be time no longer but on the day of the trumpet of the seventh angel…the mystery of God should be consum­mated.

The “end of time“ was important to Messiæn as a technical development as well as a religious concept. The end of the bar-line is signalled immediately in “Liturgy of crystal“ where, under the dawn chorus of birdsong on clarinet and violin, the piano and the cello repeat their conflicting rhythmic patterns, neither of which has much to do with the 3/4 time signature. The short outer sections of the second movement evoke the power of the “Angel who announces the end of Time,” the middle section represening the “impalpable harmonies of heaven.” In the “Abyss of the Birds,” an extended movement with no prescribed metre for clarinet alone, the abyss is “Time, with its sadness and weariness,” while the clarinet’s bird song is “the opposite of Time, our desire for light, stars, rainbows, and jubilant voices.”

After the Intermède, the fifth movement, “Praise of the eternity of Jesus,“ is an “infinitely slow and ecstatic” contemplation for cello accompanied in an even semi-quaver rhythm on the piano. The “Dance of fury for the seven trumpets” is another monody but quite different from that of the third movement in that it is scored for the most part for all four instruments in unison, describing the seven trumpets sounded by the seven angels of the Apocalypse.

The last two movements are the structural and spiritual apotheosis of the work. “Bundle of rainbows for the angel who announces the end of Time,” develops at length the two ideas presented in the second movement. Similarly, the last movement “Praise of the immortality of Jesus” refers back to the fifth but not so much thematically as theologically, stylistically and texturally: a slow and contemplative violin solo accompanied by a repeated rhythmic figure on the piano, it ends with the violin climbing to the very top of its range as a symbol of “the ascension of Jesus-the-man to his God.”

Messiæn’s prayers were answered in at least one respect, incidentally, when an upright piano was delivered to Stalag VIII just as the Quatuor pour la fin du Temps was completed.

Liturgie de cristal:

bien modéré, en poudroiement harmonieux

Vocalise, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps:

robuste, modéré

Abîme des oiseaux:

lent, expressif et triste

Intermède:

décidé, modéré, un peu vif

Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus:

infiniment lent, extatique

Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes:

décidé, vigoureux, granitique, un peu vif

Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps:

rêveur, presque lent

Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus:

extrêmement lent et tendre, extatique

The Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (Quartet for the end of Time), one of the most ambitious of all chamber works, had a modest beginning. Taken prisoner at Verdun in 1940, Messiaen was impounded with thousands of other French soldiers in a field near Nancy before being sent to a POW camp. It was in that field that he wrote a solo-clarinet piece (now called Abîme des oiseaux) for a fellow prisoner. Having been transported to Stalag VIII at Görlitz in Silesia, Messiæn then wrote a short scherzo (Intermède) for the same clarinettist together with a violinist and cellist who had been interned with them. An attractive little piece, not least because of the briefly Ravel-like theme introduced by cello with pizzicato accompaniment on the violin, the trio must also have seemed more than slightly eccentric with its unisons at the beginning, its patches of bird song on clarinet and its winding syncopations. However that may be, it was so well received as to lead to the composition, for the same performers together with Messiaen himself, of the eight-movement Quatuor pour la fin du Temps.

The Quatuor was an act of faith on Messiæn’s part in more ways than one. On the practical level, although there was no piano in the camp at the time, he wrote a piano part for six of the eight movements. On the spiritual level, it was inspired by the passage in Revelations which he quotes at the beginning of the score: I saw a mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rain­bow was upon his head…    He lifted up his hand to heaven and sware by him that liveth for ever…    that there should be time no longer but on the day of the trumpet of the seventh angel…    the mystery of God should be consum­mated.

The “end of time“ was important to Messiæn as a technical development as well as a religious concept. The end of the bar-line is signalled immediately in Liturgie de cristal where, under the dawn chorus of birdsong on clarinet and violin, the piano (in dense harmonies) and the cello (in harmonics) repeat their conflicting rhythmic patterns, neither of which has much to do with the 3/4 time signature. The short outer sections of the second movement evoke the power of the “Angel who announces the end of Time“; the middle section represents the “impalpable harmonies of heaven,” muted cello and violin sustaining a melodic line against gentle cascades of piano chords described by the composer as “rainbow drops of water.” In Abîme des oiseaux the abyss is “Time, with its sadness and weariness,” while the simulated bird song is “the opposite of Time, our desire for light, stars, rainbows, and jubilant voices.”

After the Intermède, the fifth movement, Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus, is an “infinitely slow and ecstatic” contemplation for cello accompanied in an even semi-quaver rhythm on the piano. The Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes is another monody but quite different from that of the third movement in that it is scored for the most part for all four instruments in unison: incorporating most of Messiæn’s non-metrical rhythmic tech­niques, it describes the seven trumpets sounded by the seven angels of the Apocalypse, the last announcing the “consummation of the mystery of God.”

The last two movements are the structural and spiritual apotheosis of the foregoing. Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps develops at length the two ideas presented in the second movement, the one alternating with the other. Similarly, the last movement Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus refers back to the fifth, Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus, but not so much thematically as theologically, stylistically and texturally: an “extremely slow” and contemplative violin solo accompanied by a repeated rhythmic figure on the piano, it ends with the violin climbing to the very top of its range as a symbol of “the ascension of Jesus-the-man to his God.”

Messiæn’s prayers for a piano were answered when an upright was delivered to Stalag VIII just as the Quatuor pour la fin du Temps was completed. It was out of tune and in ill repair but, with the composer at the keyboard, it was sufficient for a triumphant first performance of Quatuor pour la fin du Temps in a severely sub-zero temperature in the prisoners’ theatre hut on 15 January 1941.

Gerald Larner ©2006