OLIVIER MESSIAEN Quatuor pour la fin du Temps Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was born to artistic parents in Avignon, France.

He entered the prestigious Paris Conservatory at age eleven and studied composition with Paul Dukas and organ with Marcel Dupr. His musicology professor, Maurice Emmanuel, also made a profound impact on the young Messiaen, who quickly matured into a versatile musician under the tutelage of his mentors and won the coveted first prizes at the Paris Conservatory in Counterpoint, Piano Accompaniment, Organ, and Composition. The Quartet for the End of Time, scored for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, was composed in 1940 while Messiaen was captive in a German prisoner of war camp Grlitz in Silesia during World War II. The unique instrumentation of the piece was conceived upon the composer meeting three other accomplished musicians in the camp: Etienne Pasquier, an internationally renowned cellist, violinist Jean Le Boulaire, a former graduate of the Paris Conservatory, and clarinettist Henri Akoka, who was a member of LOrchestre National de la Radio de Paris. The premier of the work took place before 5,000 prisoners in the camp the following year 1941. Messiaen recalled that particular performance, remarking that he had neverbeen listened to with such consideration and understanding. A devout Catholic, Messiaens major inspiration for the Quartet was the following passage from the Book of Revelations:
I saw a mighty angel descending from heaven, clothed in a cloud, having a rainbow on his head. His face was as the sun, his feet as columns of fire. He placed his right foot on the sea, his left foot on the earth, and, supporting himself on the sea and on the earth, he raised his hand towards Heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, saying: There will be no more Time; but on the day of the trumpet of the seventh angel, the mystery of God will be completed.

The work consists of eight programmatic movements set to Messiaens own text, which are based on the symbolic imagery of the biblical passages: I. Liturgie de cristal (Crystal Liturgy). Between three and four in the morning, the reawakening of the birds: a solo thrush or nightingale improvises, surrounded by dusts of sound, by a halo of trills lost high in the trees. Transpose that onto the religious plane, and you have the harmonious silence of heaven. Messiaens fascination with birdsongs are especially noted throughout the

Quartet and his interest in ornithology was instilled in him by one of his teachers, Dukas, who reportedly encouraged his students to "listen to the birds." For Messiaen, it is not just the songs of birds that are projected through this music but also the intense colors of avian plumage, and the awe Messiaen felt for birds as being, like angels or resurrected souls, free in flight and at one with God. The songs of the nightingale are illustrated by variants of five patterns on the high range of the violin. The design of the lightly varied phrase structure of the birds gives the improvisatory feel. II. Vocalise pour lAnge qui annonce la fin du Temps (Vocalise, for the Angel who Announces the End of Time). The first and third parts, very short, evoke the power of this immense angel. The middle section presents the impalpable harmonies of heaven. Gentle cascades of blue-orange chords in the piano make a distant carillon around the plainsong-like melody of the violin and cello. There are three main sections in the Vocalise, for the Angel who Announces the End of Time. The first section starts with a terrible motive that is symbolic of the Angel. It alternates back and forth with its double tempo marked presque vif, joyeux. The middle section is a complete contrast to the first section and is marked presque lent, impalpable lointain. The descending chords in the piano are meant to symbolize the rainbow upon which the Angel stands. The final section is reminiscent of an inverted version of the first section. III. Abme des oiseaux (Abyss of the Birds). Clarinet solo. The abyss is Time, with its miseries, its fatigues. The birds are the contrary to Time: our desire as light, as stars, as rainbows, as jubilant vocalises! The third movement, Abyss of the Birds is composed for a solo clarinet. It can also be thought as a broad A-B-A1 form, in which beginning of each section is marked by long held concert Es. The larger structure also highlights the programmatic contrast between the two sections. The A section, representing the Abyss of Time connotes a lethargic feeling, with eighth note at 44, while B section of the Birds marked at much more brisk tempo at quarter note equals 126, recalls the blackbird motif (trills) and nightingale motif (disjunct leaps) from the first movement. The omission of the time signature in this movement suggests rhythmic freedom and lends an improvisatory characteristic by the solo instrument. IV. Intermde (Interlude). Scherzo, of a more outward character than the other movements, but nevertheless linked to them by melodic recollections. Actually the first movement to be written, Interlude is the only movement out of the eight which uses the trio without piano. It begins as a rhythmic and melodic unison. The eight bar motif repeats four times with slight variation each time. After its initial introduction, harmony is presented

among the three instruments while maintaining the rhythmic unison. The clarinet recalls the ascending flourish from the second movement as well as the blackbird motif from the first movement. By the third time this theme is presented, clarinet drops out completely, only to join to give accompanimental support to the cello. V. Louange a lternit de Jsus (Paean to the Eternity of Jesus). Jesus is considered here as Word. A long cello phrase, infinitely slow, reverently exalts this powerful, gentle Word, which the years will never exhaust. The fifth movement, Paean to the Eternity of Jesus was rearranged for cello and piano from an earlier, unpublished piece, Ftes des belles eaux (1937) as well as "Oraison", a work for six ondes martenots (which is considered one of the earliest successful electronic instrument). Incredibly slow in tempo, the simplicity of the accompaniment figure of the piano is realized through the repetition of the chords over a slow harmonic rhythm in the piano. VI. Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes (Dance of Fury, for the Seven Trumpets). Rhythmically the most characteristic movement of the cycle. The four instruments in unison take on the magic of gongs and trumpets. Use of the added value, augmented and diminished rhythms, nonretro gradable rhythms. Stone music; irresistible movement of steel, of huge blocks of purple fury, of frozen inebriation. Perhaps the most popular of the movements, the Dance of Fury, for the Seven Trumpets, is a turbulent depiction of gongs and trumpets played by the Angels who announce the End of Time and the disasters they cause. It is written in unison throughout for all instruments and is based on the theme which was originally introduced by the violin and the cello in unison in the IV Intermde movement. Another characteristic of Messiaens composition style is portrayed in his use of added values, in which a shorter value, whether it is a note, a rest or a dot is added to the original note. Essentially, the value creates the small groups of 3,5,7,11, or 13 sixteenth notes subdivision, all belonging to prime numbers. VII. Fouillis darcs-en-ciel pour lAnge qui annonce la fin du Temps (Mingling of Rainbows, for the Angel who Announces the End of Time). Some passages from the second movement return. The Angel of enormous force appears, and especially the rainbow over him (the rainbow: symbol of peace, of wisdom, of all kinds of light and sound vibration). In my dreams I hear and see classified chords and melodies, known colours and forms; then, after this transitory stage, I pass into the surreal and submit myself ecstatically to a tumbling, a spinning interpenetration of superhuman sounds and colours. These fire swords, these blue-orange lava flows, these sudden stars: here are the bundles, here are the rainbows! Mingling of Rainbow for the Angel who Announces the End of Time is the seventh movement. It is a cleverly developed movement which makes many

references to the previous movements. From the very opening, the cello melody recalls the second theme of the second movement initially played by the cello and violin in unison. In addition to the implications of same tempo marking (eighth note equals to 50), they share same opening interval. The piano part after the opening cello solo is almost a replica of the first bar of the second movement, which serves as a contrast to the first theme. Furthermore the violin and clarinet quotes the main motif from the sixth movement. The opening cello solo is quoted by a solo violin with a clarinet accompaniment. The movement ends in an extatic quote of this theme by the violin, clarinet and cello playing unison. The the sudden bursts of sound in the arpeggiated piano accompaniment provide the twinkling of stars. VIII. Louange lImmortalit de Jsus (Paean to the Immortality of Jesus). Solo violin movement, making a pendant to the cello of the fifth movement. Why this second act of praise? It is addressed more particularly to the second aspect of Jesus, to Jesus-Man, to the Word made flesh, resurrected immortal to communicate to us his life. Its slow rise toward the extreme treble is the ascension of man towards his God, of the child of God toward his Father, of deified creatures towards Paradise. The last movement, Paean to the Immortality of Jesus is scored for violin and piano. This movement is a rearrangement from the second section of his Diptyque for Organ (this is transposed up a minor third in Quartuor). Similar to the corresponding section of his Diptyque and its parallel movement, of the fifth movement, the tempo of this movement is slow; in fact significantly slower than both of the works as the eighth note equals to 36. Messiaen refers to this movement as a binary sentence, in which there are four major sections.