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The 8 pieces of music I have posted above are the eight movements of Messiaen's "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" or the "Quartet for the End of Time" I wanted to talk about this piece for a little because it's very interesting. Messiaen was captured by the German army during world war two, and taken as a prisoner of war to a German WWII camp called Stalag VIII-A. Like any other German WWII camp it was horrific, overcrowded, and unbearable. It was here however that Messiaen composed the quartet for the end of time with tossed pencils on pieces of scrap paper and napkins. Messiaen met clarinetist Henri Akoka as well as violinist Jean le Boulaire and cellist Étienne Pasquier in the camp and ended up composing the piece as a quartet for himself at the piano and the others on their respective instruments. It is interesting that in the midst of a POW camp in WWII when your basic survival necessities (food, water, shelter) are barely being fulfilled that one still wishes to create art. This to me says that art is something that we need on a basic level to survive, we need it just as much as we need water, food, and sleep. We crave creativity like we're hungry. My advice... dig in.
Messiaen said the inspiration for the work was a quote from the book of revelations:
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth .... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever ... that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished ....
Keep that in mind when you listen to the piece if you choose to.
Ive read about the Holocaust and never of this. It's really interesting. I think it also shows how music can inspire, transport, heal, etc. it's an uncontrollable entity and an intrinsic part of our life
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