One of the pieces most often heard on the world's chamber music stages, creating an extraordinary aura of spirituality and emotionality, 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 piece was created in the Giorlico (Silesia) prisoner of war camp, where the composer was imprisoned in 1940-1941. 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 in 1941. January 15 The piano part was performed by O. Messiaen himself.
The composer created with the help of the guard Karl Albert Brüll, who appreciated the music, who, impressed by O. Messiaen's talent, provided him with writing tools and gave him an undisturbed space.
The author wrote about the content and structure of the quartet: "The musical language of the work is essentially immaterial, spiritual, Catholic. The harmony, which realizes a certain universality of sound by means of melody and harmony, brings the listener closer to eternity in space and infinity. Unusual rhythms that are not bound by any norms help a lot to distance everything that is mundane. (But it's all but attempts and rambles when you consider the crushing majesty of the subject!) Quartet in eight movements. Why? Seven is a great number, the six-day creation sanctified by the divine sabbath; the seventh, the day of rest, lasts until eternity and becomes the eighth, a day of perfect light, undisturbed peace."
