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Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Olivier Messiaen

Quatuor pour la fin du temps

Amatis Trio & Ib Hausmann

Label: CAvi
Format: CD
Barcode: 4260085530427
barcode
Catalog number: AVI 8553042
Releasedate: 25-03-22
-The Quatuor pour la fin du temps counts as one of the harrowing musicals heritages of a horrible past history.
- Messiaen wrote it in 1941 caught in a German concentration camp, and based the work on resources available
- The work with more than 50 minutes length is a maximum condense on a harrowing musicals thoughts, composed under psychological pressure, distress and horror, and also out of pure despair.
- The piece counts as one of the most difficult musical works to play; it needs an enormous amount of concentration and psychological power.
-  „…warmly recommended, and whets the appetite for more from this fine ensemble (Gramophone Magazine July 2020)

MESSIAEN and Eternity
“The work,” as Messiaen writes, “is directly inspired by the Revelation of St. John. Its musical language is essentially transcendental, spiritual, catholic. Certain modes, realizing a kind of tonal ubiquity in terms of harmony and melody, draw the listener into a sense of the eternity of space or time. Special rhythms, lying outside any sort of measure, contribute significantly toward the banishment of the concept of time.

(However, all this is mere striving and childish stammering if one compares it to the overwhelming greatness of the subject!)

“This quartet contains eight movements. Why? Seven is the perfect number, the creation of six days made holy by the divine Sabbath: the seventh in its repose prolongs itself into eternity and becomes the eighth, of unfailing light, of immutable piece.

“The four performers played on broken-down instruments: Etienne Pasquier’s cello had only three strings, the keys of my upright piano went down but did not always come up again. Our costumes were unbelievable: they rigged me out in a green jacket completely in shreds, and I wore wooden clogs.………….“ (Excerpt from the booklet notes by Ib Hausmann)