This large work for chamber ensemble was conceived after the composer was taken prisoner by the Nazis during the fall of France. He scored the quartet for piano, violin, cello, and clarinet, since those were the instruments that his fellow prisoners knew how to play. The piece premiered in January 1...
Lyrics for this song have yet to be released
Quartet for the End of Time was written by Olivier Messiaen.
Olivier Messiaen released Quartet for the End of Time on Wed Jan 15 1941.
In his preface to the score, the composer describes the opening movement:
Between three and four in the morning, the awakening of birds: a solo blackbird or nightingale improvises, surrounded by a shimmer of sound, by a halo of trills lost very high in the trees. Transpose this onto a religious pla...