ÿþ<html> <head> <title>Forest Hill Chamber Music Festival 2004</title> <style> a:link {color:888888;text-decoration: none} a:active {color:888888;text-decoration: none} a:visited {color:888888;text-decoration: none} a:hover {color:000000;text-decoration: none} </style> </head> <body bgColor=ffffff topmargin=15 leftmargin=0 text=555555 link=000000 alink=000000 vlink=000000> <center> <a href="index.html"><img src="title01w.gif" border=0></a><BR> <BR><font size=3> { <a href="p1.html">6/11</a> &nbsp; <a href="p2.html">6/12</a> &nbsp; <a href="p3.html">6/13</a> &nbsp; <a href="p4.html">6/13</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="artists.html">artists</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="notes.html">program notes</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="photos.html">photos</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="contact.html">tickets</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="ack.html">acknowledgements</a> } &nbsp; { <a href="intro.html">about</a> } <BR><BR><BR> <table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0> <TR> <Td align=right valign=top> <table border=0 cellpadding=15 cellspacing=0><TR><TD align=right> <a href="n01-bach.html">Johann Sebastian Bach </a><BR> <a href="n02-beet.html">Ludwig van Beethoven </a><BR> <a href="n03-berg.html">Alban Maria Johannes Berg </a><BR> <a href="n14-druk.html">Jacob Raphael Druckman </a><BR> <a href="n04-dvor.html">Antonín DvoYák </a><BR> <a href="n05-hind.html">Paul Hindemith </a><BR> <a href="n06-mech.html">Kirke Mechem</a><BR> <a href="n07-mess.html">Olivier Messiaen</a><BR> <a href="n08-moza.html">Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart </a><BR> <a href="n09-rohde.html">Kurt Rohde</a><BR> <a href="n10-ss.html">Charles Camille Saint-Saëns </a><BR> <a href="n11-scho.html">Arnold Schönberg </a><BR> <a href="n12-schub.html">Franz Peter Schubert </a><BR> <a href="n13-schum.html">Robert Schumann</a><BR> </td></tr></table> </td> <TD valign=top> <img src="black.gif" width=1 height=310><BR> </td> <TD valign=top width=500> <Table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=15><TR><TD> <font size=5><center><b>Olivier Messiaen</b><font size=2><br><i> b. 1908 Avignon, France; d. 1992 Paris, France</i></center><font size=3><br><br> <b>Quartet For the End of Time (1941)</b><br> <br> The basic facts: In 1940 Olivier Messiaen was a conscript in the French army. With the fall of France, he was captured by the Germans and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Silesia. Within harsh conditions there, he was inspired to write a piece of music for the camp to be performed by fellow prisoners. The scoring, for the unlikely combination of piano, violin, cello, and clarinet was a result of the available instruments and performers in Stalag 8A. <br><br>The premiere took place in an unheated barrack. A fellow inmate drew up a program in <i>Art Nouveau</i> style, to which an official stamp was affixed:  Stalag VIIIA 49 geprüft (approved). Sitting in the front row, shivering along with the prisoners, were the German officers of the camp. <br><br>One could write a book about this work; in fact, a music professor-clarinetist at Ohio University, Rebecca Rischin, has done just that, published by Cornell University Press in December 2003. Through research which included interviews with the original players (minus the composer), she has debunked some of the myths which the composer himself later contributed to the story. <br><br>Messiaen had later written:  The cold was excruciating, the Stalag was buried under snow. The four performers played on broken-down instruments. Étiènne Pasquier s cello had only three strings and the keys on the piano went down but did not come up again. But never have I had an audience who listened with such rapt attention and comprehension. <br><br>That last was perhaps quite true. Messiaen had written the work s celebrated clarinet solo,  Abyss of the Birds, some time before, and two other parts were derived from earlier compositions. Cellist Pasquier has since insisted that he had all his strings, and the camp building could hold at most 400 or so, hardly  the hearts of five thousand hardened soldiers which Messiaen later proclaimed that premiere had won. <br><br>Also, according to author Rischin, the music could never have existed without the collaboration of the prisoners and guards, most especially the quasi-angelic figure of Karl-Albert Brüll, a music-loving guard so excited by the presence of a significant composer that he gave Messiaen pencils, erasers, and music paper, had the composer stationed in an empty barrack to work undisturbed, and posted a guard at the door to turn away intruders. After the premiere, Brüll arranged for Messiaen s rapid return to France, having conspired in the forging of documents. <br><br>Messiaen is a composer who is difficult to put into any convenient category. He was one of the great composers of the twentieth century. He was also a renowned organist  he held the position of chief organist at La Trinité in Paris from 1931 until his death  and much of his music was written for that instrument. <br><br>He was a famous teacher and also a devout student of many subjects including birds and birdsong. He was fascinated with ancient Greek poetry and meter. His interests also encompassed Indian ragas, Indonesian gamelan music, and medieval songs. Above all, perhaps the most important influence on Messiaen s music was his devout Catholicism  he loved God in terms that were extremely sensual, even almost sexual. <br><br>An inscription in the score supplies an image from <i>The Book of Revelation:</i>  In homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, who lifts his hand toward heaven, saying,  There shall be time no longer.  <br><br>The structure of the Quartet is both musical and mystical. There are eight movements in total  because God rested on the seventh day after creation, a day which extended into the eighth day of timeless eternity. <br><br>Messiaen devised a varied and flexible rhythmic system in this work, based in part on ancient Hindu rhythms, which more or less put an end to the equally measured  time of western classical music. For Messiaen, the end of time also meant an escape from history, a leap into an invisible paradise. <br><br>It may be noted here that Maestro Nagano is celebrated for his understanding and advocacy of Messiaen s music and his close friendship with the composer during his lifetime, now continuing between the Naganos and the composer s widow, pianist Yvonne Loriod, with whom Maestro Nagano has also recorded. <br><br>Messiaen s great opera,  St. Francis of Assisi, was given its first performance in an  underground reading in San Francisco led by Maestro Nagano, and he has since conducted several international premieres of that work, plus an award winning recording for Deutsche Grammophon, in addition to many other Messiaen performances and recordings. Mari and Momo Kodama are also highly regarded for their performances of Messiaen s very difficult music. <br> </td></tr></table> </td> </tr> </table> </body></html>