Analysis Of 'Quaor Pour La Fin Du Temps'

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Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet For The End of Time) was written by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. The work was composed in Stalag VIII-A, which was a prisoner-of-war camp located in Görlitz, Germany (currently Zgorzelec, Poland). Messiaen presented the primature sketches of what would become Abyss of the birds to clarinetist Henri Akoka who was also a prisoner at the same camp. It was the main reason behind the fact that the third movement Abîme des oiseaux was written for a solo clarinet where other movements involved at least two instruments. The unsual instrumentaion of the composition, consisting of Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano was based primarily on the number and availability of professional musicians who were kept captive in Stalag VIII-A. Interestingly, there were other composers such as Hindemith who wrote chamber works for the same set of instruments before Messiaen completed the task. …show more content…

Olivier Messiaen was 31 years old at the time France got involved in the Second World War. Shortly after that, Messiaen enlisted in the army as a French soldier. Unfortunately in June of 1940, the composer was captured by the Nazis and was sent to POW camp where Quartet For The End of Time was created. In addition to his fellow prisoner and clarinetist Henri Akoka, Messiaen became acquainted with two other professional musicians - violinist Jean Le Boulaire and cellist Étienne Pasquier. All thee musicians along with Messiaen on the piano premiered Quatuor pour la fin du

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