On the train to the concentration camp, French composer Olivier Messiaen met a colleague in art and arms, clarinetist Henri Akoka, who, like him, was being transferred as a prisoner of war to a prison camp outside Görlitz, German territory that today belongs to Poland. In order to make the difficult circumstances more bearable, during the journey, Messiaen entertained himself discussing with Akoka the sketches of a clarinet piece that would later become part of a larger work, the Quartet for the End of Time, composed in the very same concentration camp a few months later.
A renowned composer
At the time, Messiaen was 31 years old and already recognized as one of the most remarkable French composers of his generation. The son of a literature professor and a poetess, the musician had grown up in an environment favoring artistic creation. A brilliant student at the Paris Conservatory, he made the organ his professional instrument of which he became an accomplished performer.
Deeply religious, his music drew inspiration from the Catholic faith as well as from Hinduism, forming a personal style that stands out for its rhythmic and harmonic richness. His richness of timbres is not far behind, sustained by a great love for nature and birdsong. All this was no impediment to his being captured by the Germans in June 1940 during the siege of Verdun and being sent to a prison camp.
In the prison campOlivier Messiaen (1908 - 1992)
While in prison, he had the opportunity to meet other soldier-musicians. Among them, a cellist and a violinist. Messiaen set about finishing the clarinet piece offered to Akoka and then composed a trio for the three musicians. A curious wartime indulgence granted to these non-combatant soldiers, brass band soldiers, allowed Messiaen to get an old piano back in Görlitz. The composer then devised a piano part and transformed the trio into a quartet.
Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Premiered in the concentration camp on January 15, 1941, before an audience of about 400 people, including prisoners and guards, the quartet takes its name from a passage in the Book of Revelations in which the angel announces the end of time. The unusual combination of instruments (violin, clarinet, cello, and piano) obeys, naturally, to the peculiar circumstances of its creation. And the uneven participation of them, to the fact that their genesis is very different. Of the eight movements that make up the piece, only half involve the four instrumentalists together. (The third movement is a clarinet solo, Akoka's, as might be expected).
The musicians are: Marta Sikora, violin / Oded Shnei Dor, clarinet / Yedidya Shaliv, cello / Ayal Pelc, piano.
