The
writing and first performance of French composer Olivier Messiaen's
Quartet for the End of Time, in a German POW camp in the bitter winter of
1941, is one of the great stories of 20th century music. Ohio University
music professor Rischin has gone to heroic lengths to separate the facts
from the legends that have grown up about it. Some of these legends, as
she demonstrates, were encouraged by the composer himself, who would tell
interviewers the whole work was composed at Stalag
VIIIA in Silesia, that its form was dictated by the
instrumentalists available there (piano, cello, violin and clarinet), that
the cellist played with only three strings and that there was a rapt
audience of thousands. In fact, Messiaen (1908-1992) had written the
work's celebrated clarinet solo, "Abyss of the Birds," some time before
with clarinetist Henri Akoka's participation; cellist Etienne Pasquier had
his full quota of strings; and the camp building could hold at most 400 or
so. Rischin tracked down the elderly Pasquier and violinist Jean La
Boulaire (who lived his postwar life as an actor) and also talked to
Messiaen's widow and Akoka's surviving family. Oddly, none of them had
been interviewed about the occasion, which made the work Messiaen's most
celebrated. These interviews show a remarkable picture of life at a
desperate time-and of how the German authorities were anxious to show
their civilized side to the French. The players come off better than the
deeply religious, aloof, rather ethereal Messiaen, who seems to have been
so otherworldly as to recoil from life's messiness. This is a fascinating,
and finally believable, account of a remarkable occasion.
The
writing and first performance of French composer Olivier Messiaen's
Quartet for the End of Time, in a German POW camp in the bitter winter of
1941, is one of the great stories of 20th century music. Ohio University
music professor Rischin has gone to heroic lengths to separate the facts
from the legends that have grown up about it. Some of these legends, as
she demonstrates, were encouraged by the composer himself, who would tell
interviewers the whole work was composed at Stalag
VIIIA in Silesia, that its form was dictated by the
instrumentalists available there (piano, cello, violin and clarinet), that
the cellist played with only three strings and that there was a rapt
audience of thousands. In fact, Messiaen (1908-1992) had written the
work's celebrated clarinet solo, "Abyss of the Birds," some time before
with clarinetist Henri Akoka's participation; cellist Etienne Pasquier had
his full quota of strings; and the camp building could hold at most 400 or
so. Rischin tracked down the elderly Pasquier and violinist Jean La
Boulaire (who lived his postwar life as an actor) and also talked to
Messiaen's widow and Akoka's surviving family. Oddly, none of them had
been interviewed about the occasion, which made the work Messiaen's most
celebrated. These interviews show a remarkable picture of life at a
desperate time-and of how the German authorities were anxious to show
their civilized side to the French. The players come off better than the
deeply religious, aloof, rather ethereal Messiaen, who seems to have been
so otherworldly as to recoil from life's messiness. This is a fascinating,
and finally believable, account of a remarkable occasion.