Klarinet Archive - Posting 000336.txt from 1994/11

From: Christopher Zello <en444@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Messiaen: "Quatuor pour la fin du temps"
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 1994 02:22:56 -0500

A good place to start might be to look in a few books about
Messiaen in the library--with their subjects being Messiaen.
I remember finding out all kinds of goodies in those books.

I also remember a professor of mine last year saying that
Stalag VIII was not a concentration camp. Some people get it
confused, indeed, it was a POW camp. Actually Messiaen and all
other 8000 of so prisoners were not abused, just captured.
The guards brought him paper to write this on. Other facts
I remember is that the performance took place outdoors in
temps. -40 degrees F. The guards got Messiaen a piano and
a three stringed cello (one of the strings which the premiere
was performed on had a broken string). I remember reading
that the prisoners liked the piece.

There are all kinds of important facts which you can find
out by getting a friend of yours to translate the French
opening of the piano score. I simply copied it and took it
to a French TA at DePaul and said I need it for a performance,
can you help me out, thanks so much. I didn't have to
pay a penny for it.

But Messiaen was experimenting with a lot of additive
value rhythms. So, things in the 6th movement are actually
planned rhythms taken from his "theory book" and then
the pitches are like the "colour."

I would rather not go into each movement, since it will all
be revealed to you upon getting the translation of the
French opening in the piano part.

I'll leave it up to someone else to address the playing
aspects of this. . .

The clarinet player in the camp had his own instrument with
him. The violinist did too. Basically, Messiaen just
made use of his available instrumental resources.

BTW, the choice of 8 movements was because he felt that 8
was the perfect number, and infinite in nature. (This is
from the French text, although not a translation--just off
the top of my head).

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