Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time, I/22

Featuring

Christina Åstrand
Johnny Teyssier
Henrik Dam Thomsen
Per Salo
Olivier Messiaen

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Recording & Production

This recording was made in the DXD audio format (Digital eXtreme Definition, 352.8 kHz/32bit) using a Pyramix DAW system with Horus preamps/converters and B&W 802D Nautilus Diamond speakers for monitoring.

Composition History

Messiaen composed his 'Quartet for the End of Time' while imprisoned in Stalag VIII A, a German prisoner-of-war camp, where a German officer provided him with pencils and manuscript paper.

Performer Biography

Johnny Teyssier, the clarinetist on this recording, is the solo clarinetist of the Danish National Symphony and has previously held positions with the Malmö Symphony and the Minnesota Opera Orchestra.

Compositional Technique

Messiaen incorporated birdsong into his music, transcribing it from the age of fifteen, and used the violin to represent a nightingale and the clarinet a blackbird in this quartet.

Composer Biography

Olivier Messiaen, the composer, was drafted into the army in September 1939, a week before war broke out, despite being nearsighted and ill-suited for combat.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Messiaen, a devout believer, stated, 'I was born a believer,' and his mother, Cécile Sauvage, a poet, said before his birth, 'I suffer from an unknown distant music.'

Notable Performances

The 'Quartet for the End of Time' premiered on January 15th, 1941, at 6 pm, in Barrack 27 of Stalag VIII A, a German prisoner-of-war camp, to an audience of Frenchmen and Eastern Europeans.