Messiaen’s
Quartet
for the End of Time is probably the composer’s most
famous work. Masterpiece though it is, it owes at least
some of that fame to its story of origin. It is, now at
least, also his most often recorded work. Seven new versions
have been added this year alone, and five more re-issued.
It is constructed
in eight movements of which the first (
Liturgie de cristal),
second (
Vocalise, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps /
for the Angel who announced the end of time), sixth (
Danse
de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes / Dance of fury,
for the seven trumpets), and seventh (
Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel,
pour l’Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps / Tangle of
rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of time) are
for the full quartet of clarinet, piano, violin and cello.
The third (
Abîme des oiseaux / Abyss of birds) is
a 7 to 11 minute long clarinet solo, the fourth (
Intermède)
an interlude that excludes the piano, the fifth (
Louange à l’Éternité de
Jésus / Eulogy to the eternity of Jesus), a miniature
cello sonata lasting anywhere from 7:20 to 11 minutes; the
finale (
Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus / Eulogy
to the immortality of Jesus) a six and a half to nine minute
long violin and piano fantasy.
The first recording
I’ve had of the quartet has left an emotional footprint in
my ear that is difficult to remove: Peter
Serkin, Ida Kavafian, Fred Sherry, and Richard Stoltzman
(RCA, 1976) are indelibly imbued as “
the” Quartet for the End of Time. But the variety of interpretations
now available is most pleasing in and of itself – from the
impossibly slow Trio Wanderer (ARD Competition winner) with Pascal
Moragués (Harmonia Mundi) to the sinewy, individualistically-voiced
Hebrides Ensemble (Linn) there is something for every taste.
The violinist
of the Hebrides Ensemble pecks his violin interjections out
of the clarinet-piano background of
Liturgie de cristal most
bird-like, but I love the serene distance the strings of
the Houston Chamber Players (Koch) offer – an awakening of
a touching, gentle kind, just as Messiaen stipulates (“Between
three and four in the morning, the awakening of birds”).
Eduar Brunner (Trio Fontenay, Harmonia Mundi—musique d’abord)
has the most distinctive clarinet tone here – very distant,
hollow, thinner and not as velvety as Moragués’ (Trio Wanderer).
A little too
much air - this ‘slipping the clutch’ kind-of sound - is
present in the exclamatory phrase of the
Vocalise with
the clarinetists of the Hebrides Ensemble and the deliberate
Houston Chamber Players. Barnaby Robson (Schellhorn and Philharmonia
Orchestra Soloists, Signum Classics), Robert Plane (Gould
Trio, Chandos), and Pascal Moragués’ show how it’s made to
evoke a powerful angel announcing the end of time, with Plane
offering the most vigor without ugliness of tone and Moragués
the greatest control and beauty. Jean-Louis
Sajot (on a 2006 Calliope recording) is somewhere in between,
Brunner flawless but recessed.
Differences
are very pronounced in the sixth movement
Danse
de la fureur: Too much reverb makes the Calliope production hazy, Isserlis
and Co (Decca) as well as the Hebrides Ensemble emphasize
the strings, the Houston Chamber Players are very distant
and therefore lack immediacy and attack, Schellhorn and
Co. are quick, with nice balance and sound but are rhythmically
not as pointed as Fontenay/Brunner or Wanderer/Moragués
- again the most deliberate here.
Harmonia Mundi
gives the Trio Wanderer a very immediate sound making the
players acutely present - beyond the music, even: several
times while listening I thought that subtle extraneous noises
came from somewhere else in the house. The Trio gives us
the most distinctive among the new readings. No other performance,
not even Manuel Fischer-Dieskau’s (EMI) can boast such a
velvety, smooth clarinet sound - not that a reedy, jazzy
sound – Stoltzman comes to mind – can’t be as, or more, desirable
in this work. They work out every legato phrase with extra
care, stretching movements to unheard-of lengths. No other
ensemble needs over 50 minutes for the Quartet. This adds
beauty, it adds a simmering passion, but it saps energy
too. The Houston Symphony Chamber Players on the older (1999)
Koch recording also take their time, especially David Peck
in the clarinet solo of the second movement where he takes
10 minutes and 40 seconds; this compared to Eduard Brunner’s
6 minutes and 21 seconds or the less than 7 minutes the Hebrides’ Maximiliano
Martín takes. The birds, so evocative in the Houston Players’ first
movement, are a bit drowsy here.
Compared to all
that ethereal slowness, the Hebrides’ players can sound like
race-horses. They give the work a shot of adrenalin and place
it back in the prison camp whence it came. It may not be
an escapist vision of the end of time anymore, but with very
fine individual contributions and offering reference sound
quality - in regular stereo and SACD stereo; I’ve not listened
to it in SACD surround - it is the most interesting new release
of the lot, and the perfect complement to the Trio Wanderer.
The Calliope recording is, unfortunately, too resonant for
Intermède and
Danse
de la fureur, some unintrusive ambient noise is audible
in the very touching fifth movement. Decca’s (out of print)
all-star recording with Stephen Isserlis, Josh Bell, Olli
Mustonen and Michael Collins will be reissued in an upcoming
Decca Box -
itself most notable for Chailly’s
Turangalîla, but
maybe not intended for the US market. It’s fine, but not
worth going through much trouble finding, with so many other
versions available.
The Matthew Schellhorn
and Gould Piano Trio recordings all have their strong elements
- interesting couplings, both, and I particularly like Benjamin
Frith’s pianism on the latter. Ultimately they don’t stand
out enough to be chosen over the Stoltzman classic or one
of EMI’s re-issues of the Yvonne Loriod / Christoph Poppen
/ M. Fischer-Dieskau / Wolfgang Meyer combo. The Houston/Christoph
Eschenbach recording, finally, I’d not want to miss for the
wonderful effects that its slightly cavernous acoustic brings
to most movements of the work. It’s like listening to the
quartet in a large aviary.
Jens F. Laurson
See also:
- a review of the Signum disc by Anne
Ozorio
-
an article on Messiaen by Julie
Williams
- an index of
all reviews of the Quatuor on Musicweb
Trio Wanderer,
Pascal Moraguès (clar)
[73:41] 
