One of the most frequently performed works on the world’s chamber music stages, creating an extraordinary aura of spirituality and emotion, and strengthening the hope and faith of humanity with its religious content – this is how French composer Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is described.

The work was composed in the prisoner-of-war camp at Giorlitz (Silesia), where the composer was imprisoned from 1940 to 1941. It was written for three friends who were imprisoned together, as well as professional musicians – Etienne Pasquier (cello), Jean Le Boulaire (violin) and Henri Akoka (clarinet) – and premiered on 15 January 1941. The piano part was played by Messiaen himself.
The composer worked with the help of his music-appreciating concierge, Karl Albert Brühl, who, impressed by Messiaen’s talent, provided him with writing instruments and an unobstructed space.

Of the quartet’s content and structure, the author wrote: “The musical language of the work is essentially immaterial, spiritualised, Catholic. The harmonies, which realise a certain universality of sound by means of melody and harmony, bring the listener closer to eternity in space and infinity. The unusual rhythms, which are not bound by any norms, are very helpful in alienating the earthly. (But it’s all just attempts and daydreams when you think of the overwhelming grandeur of the theme!) Quartet in eight movements. Why? Seven is the perfect number, the six days of creation sanctified by the divine Sabbath; the seventh, the day of rest, lasts until eternity and becomes the eighth, the day of perfect light, of unshakeable calm.”