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Cheltenham Festival 2008 (9): Music by Messiaen. Festival Academy: Alexandra Wood (violin); Catriona Scott (clarinet); Robin Michael (cello); Huw Watkins (piano) Pittville Pump Room 18.7.2008 (JQ)

Olivier Messiaen: Quatuor pour le fin du temps


Some ten days ago I was enthralled by one of the Festival’s celebrations of the centenary of Messiaen’s birth. That was a performance of one of his most monumental works, the very public Et exspecto resurrectionem Mortuorum. Now the festival saluted again one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century music but in a completely different way with music on a much more intimate scale.

Quatuor pour le fin du temps is a remarkable work in more ways than one. For one thing the scoring is most unusual. But most remarkable of all are the circumstances in which the work came to be written. In the Second World War Messiaen became a prisoner of war and eventually he was incarcerated in a prison camp some seventy miles east of Dresden. Among his fellow inmates he discovered a violinist, a cellist and a clarinettist. Quite how Messiaen contrived to acquire in prison so much as the writing materials to compose a work of some fifty minutes duration I’m unsure but he managed to compose the piece under conditions which can scarcely have been conducive to artistic inspiration. A rickety piano was procured somehow and the composer and his three colleagues duly gave the première in front of an audience of fellow inmates. The very fact of composition is remarkable enough, therefore, but that Messiaen could produce what is often a work of great serenity and vision in these very trying circumstances is truly astonishing.

This performance was given by four members of this year’s Festival Academy. The Academy was established four years ago by the previous Festival Director, Martyn Brabbins. In the words of the present Director, Meurig Bowen, it “brings together top young musicians from Britain’s conservatoires to rehearse, practice, perform and live alongside professional musicians in a six-day residency that is unique to Cheltenham.” This was the third of four Academy concerts during the Festival. To add to the sense of occasion this late night performance was given in semi darkness. Some spotlights imparted a soft glow onto the platform and the remaining light was provided by candles placed round the auditorium, all of which created a fine ambience.

Messiaen uses his four instrumentalists in a most interesting way. The full quartet does not play all the time and, indeed, in half of the eight movements at least one instrument is silent. The piece bristles with technical and interpretative difficulties, not that one would have known this thanks to these four assured and highly skilled performers.

I was impressed by the way in which Messiaen’s subtle timbres were achieved in the opening ‘Liturgie de cristal’, a movement in which the clarinet often dominates the texture. The fiery music at the start of ‘Vocalise pour l’ange qui annonce le fin du temps’ was thrillingly done. (What evocative titles Messiaen gives to his movements!) The fiery material gives way to a wonderful, mysterious episode in which the two string players sing quietly a seemingly never-ending melody accompanied by piano chords that, to me, are suggestive of a constellation of stars. Alexandra Wood and Robin Michael were as one in delivering this melody. A brief reprise of the fiery music acts as a coda.

The third movement, ‘Abime des oiseaux’, is an extended piece for the clarinet alone. Catriona Scott was simply outstanding in this hugely demanding solo. The movement begins in haunting quiet. Miss Scott displayed magnificent control in the long, long lines of melody. Later, the soloist is tested to the full in some extremely agile music but once again she passed Messiaen’s tests with flying colours. Throughout the movement she exhibited an astonishing range of tonal colour. What caught my attention more than anything else was the several occasions when Messiaen has the clarinettist play an extremely long crescendo from nothing to full volume. Miss Scott began these so softly that one only became aware gradually that she was playing. The breath control alone was phenomenal. In all, this was a staggering technical display.

After the short ‘Intermède’, in which the piano is silent and the other three instruments play for much of the time in a spirited unison we reach one of the highlights of the work. The fifth movement, ‘Louange à l’éternité de Jésus’ is a long, slow, ecstatic song for the cello, accompanied by gently pulsing piano chords. Unfortunately two members of the audience who were seated not far from me chose to leave after the fourth movement. No doubt they had good reason for so doing but their exit was inevitably disruptive to concentration and I thought this was particularly unfair on cellist Robin Michael, who was waiting to play. To his great credit neither his composure nor his concentration seemed adversely affected by the brief interruption. He played the solo with gorgeous tone and real eloquence, supported by an accompaniment from Huw Watkins in which every chord sounded to be perfectly weighted. This deeply expressive solo is one of many expressions in Messiaen’s œuvre of his deep and sincere Catholic faith. One imagines that this faith sustained him during his captivity. However, it is a source of wonder that so serene a piece of music could have emerged from a prisoner of war camp and one can only guess at the emotions that Messiaen must have experienced not only when writing it but also when performing it for the first time.

The performers brought tremendous force and energy to the sixth movement, ‘Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes’. Here the percussive nature of the piano was well to the fore and the clarinet added a tang to the texture when playing in unison with the strings.  The dynamism, drive and power brought to this performance was really thrilling.

The most elaborate movement is ‘Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’ange qui annonce le fin du temps’. It begins with another rapt duet for cello and piano but this luminous passage is followed by vigorous, pounding tuttis. In these toccata–like passages the sense of teamwork between the four players was quite palpable.

The work ends in serenity with ‘Louange à l’immortalité de Jésus’. This time it is the violin that carries the long melodic line with the piano in mainly gentle support. In this further expression of Messiaen’s faith Alexandra Wood was as inspired as had been Robin Michael earlier on. She mixed passion and serenity in a fine, eloquent reading that suggested the vast spaces and horizons of eternity. The music faded into silence and was followed by an extended silence before the applause began. This delay was, perhaps, the best compliment that the audience could pay the performers after a splendid and very committed performance of this truly unique work.

John Quinn


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