Messiaen's 'Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps'

“Conceived and written in the course of my captivity, the Quartet for the End of Time was performed for the time in Stalag 8-A on January 15, 1941”

This essay discusses how Messiaen's Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (1941) reflects the musical context of the classical tradition and the geographical and historical context of a prisoner of war camp during World War Two and is a reflection of the composer’s religious beliefs as a response to a period of great turmoil and uncertainty.

The capitalisation of Temps could be seen to have several meanings, each of which relates to the various context in which this piece was written. Firstly, it relates to its theological context - specifically Messiaen’s Catholic faith – of the Fin du Temps is inspired by text from the Book of Revelation chapter 10 concerning the Apocalypse that will bring in the end of time and the afterlife of eternity. Temps can also be a reference to

Although not a new rhythmic technique, he takes it into new places. Isorhythm is when a repeated series of rhythmic durations is superimposed on a repeated series of notes/chords. The series are of different durations, and basic isorhythms are extended across multiple independent lines. Messiaen’s use of this is extreme. In the first bars of the Quartet (see Figure 3) Messiaen creates a process would take several days to return to its starting point. This seemingly eternal process “seems to exist in its own realm without need of cause or effect” and could make the listener feel uneasy as the listener knows this is impossible in our temporal world. To illustrate, the 1st movement has 17 durations and 29 different chords which could have continued – except the music suddenly and surprisingly stops. This sudden ending of time redefines the audience’s expectations of rhythm and musical structure while bring the audience back to earth from the ethereal and timeless sound