Quartet for the End of Time

Olivier Messiaen wrote his Quatuor pour la fin du temps when he was a French prisoner of war in a German camp shortly after the beginning of the Tweede Wereldoorlog. In that camp, Stalag VIII A in Görlitz, the first performance also took place. For this poignant work, laden with its special origin, the composer found inspiration in the small pocket Bible that the Germans allowed him to keep with him. Messiaen read in particular the Openbaring van Johannes . The ‘end of time’ does not refer to the end of the world, but to the disappearance of the time dimension, as announced in the text of John by an angel: “There will be no more time”. There was perhaps no composer who could better translate ‘timelessness’ into sound than Olivier Messiaen. The Quatuor grew into one of the most iconic compositions of the turbulent 20th century. Voor Annelien Van Wauwe it is a very impressive work, which never leaves the performers or the audience unmoved.