Quartet for the End of Time

Quartet for the End of Time, quartet in eight movements for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano by French composer Olivier Messiaen. The piece premiered on January 15, 1941, at the Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp, in Görlitz, Germany, where the composer had been confined since his capture in May 1940. The work’s instrumentation was determined by the instruments and performers at hand.

Messiaen dedicated the quartet “in homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, who raises his hand towards Heaven saying ‘There shall be no more time.’ ” The movement titles were drawn from the biblical Revelation to John.

Messiaen eschewed the usual tendency of Western music for regular rhythms and metres and instead offered ever-changing, often-unpredictable patterns, frequently based on prime numbers, especially 5, 7, 11, and 13. Clarinet and violin phrases tend to be reminiscent of bird songs, and motifs recur from one movement to another. The four instruments rarely play simultaneously.

The first movement, “Crystal Liturgy,” is largely characterized by haunting, flowing lines. For contrast, the second, “Vocalise, for the Angel Announcing the End of Time,” is more nervous and tormented, with scattered fragments of themes moving here and there. The third movement, “The Abyss of the Birds,” returns to a more open, mystic mood, with long, sustained tones for the clarinet alone, with the other three players in waiting. The fourth movement, “Interlude,” is nimble and dancelike. The fifth movement, “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus,” is a sequence of long, disembodied phrases, sometimes with no clear underlying beat; there Messiaen used only the cello and the piano. The sixth movement, “Dance of Wrath, for the Seven Trumpets,” conveys its fury with driving rhythms and much syncopation. For the seventh movement, “Tangle of Rainbows, for the Angel Announcing the End of Time,” the angel returns amid floating, open harmonies that manage to be both airy and suspenseful. The waiting mood gives way to a sudden pulsing energy. For his finale, “In Praise of the Immortality of Jesus,” Messiaen calls forth a gently reflective atmosphere with long, flowing lines.