Track Listing

1. Quartet For The End Of Time: Liturgy of Crystal
2. Quartet For The End Of Time: Vocalise, for the Angel who announces the end of Time
3. Quartet For The End Of Time: Abyss of the birds
4. Quartet For The End Of Time: Interlude
5. Quartet For The End Of Time: Praise to the Eternity of Jesus
6. Quartet For The End Of Time: Danse of Fury, for the seven trumpets
7. Quartet For The End Of Time: Cluster of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of Time
8. Quartet For The End Of Time: Praise to the Immortality of Jesus

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32255 in Music
• Released on: 1989-08-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 47 minutes

From Amazon.com
This all-star chamber ensemble was specifically formed to play Messiaen's masterpiece. Two decades after this recording was made, it still shows the effects of their intense identification with the music. Some listeners find Messiaen's music longwinded and difficult, and my own opinion varies depending on the work and my mood. But this piece, written in a German concentration camp during the early years of World War II, is truly one of the greatest works of music of the 20th century. Although it lasts nearly an hour, its variety of color and its powerful expressiveness will engross any responsive listener, especially in this performance. --Leslie Gerber

Customer Reviews

STILL A CLASSIC
The prodigiously gifted son of an even more prodigious father, Peter Serkin has shown a special interest in Messiaen very like the interest his father showed in Reger. I gather that he and his three collaborators here formed the group Tashi specifically to perform this piece. Their account has always had the status of a classic. Other fine performances have come on to the scene since 1976, but as I myself have recently come by a particularly good and eloquent effort not available on its own, I thought it might be worth seeing how the Tashi version justified its eminence a quarter of a century on. Coming quickly to the bottom line, I would say that any collector looking for only one version of the work need have no second thoughts about acquiring this one. There are things I myself prefer in other versions and there are things that I still like best in this. It is all really a matter of fine detail and any listener's individual temperament.

The work was composed and first performed in a prisoner-of-war camp during WWII. What it may prove regarding the triumph of good over evil in this world I do not propose to assess. To me, it is certainly a musical statement in some senses, but not in quite that sense. What Messiaen's music, in bad times as well as in good, always expresses is his unshakable and semi-mystical Catholic faith. Whatever his circumstances, even these, he felt and saw everything against the backdrop of eternity as his faith defined that. In happier times his music has a sense of relaxation and even of self-indulgence that are naturally absent here, but he is never introverted. His vision is always looking to the far side, and for me music, however and wherever it originated, is still just music.

The new version that I have just obtained is actually an older version, from 1971, than this, and it is performed by the stellar consort of Erich Gruenberg, Gervase de Peyer, William Pleeth and Michel Beroff. It comes in a 2-disc EMI Classics set with no less than Turangalila, which not many will consider as a makeweight, and is probably out of the reckoning for anyone looking just for the quartet. Where it sheds a specially interesting light on the Tashi version is precisely in being earlier. To a certain extent Tashi have set a standard for subsequent performance. Tashi's approach is in general lighter, with more tonal and tempo contrasts, and with less overt emotion. Given my own general outlook, this is an approach I respond to a fraction more as it seems to me to leave behind the ghastly background to the work's composition in the way I believe the composer's mind and soul did. I personally take greatly to the occasional sudden hush, and I take especially to the special touch Peter Serkin deploys in the composer's characteristic long chains of quiet chords. Also very impressive to my ears was Richard Stoltzman's big solo in the 'Abyss of the Birds' with its slow tempo and big dynamic range.

From any point of view I should call this a performance in the great category. The recording is very good, and if cost is a factor it seems to be competitive in that respect as well.

Still one of the most profound!

This classic account by the fine ensemble has stood test of time and is still one of the most profound performances of the profound work. What I like in this performance is that they let the music speak for itself without un-necessary dramatisation, and achieve greater depth and spirituality as a result. Recorded beautifully.