Ex Novo Ensemble - Sandro Cappelletto
Quatuor pour la fin du temps is a visionary
composition and one of enormous emotional impact.
Olivier Messiaen composed it during World War
II; recruited into the French Army, he was captured
by the Germans and deported to a concentration
camp. It was here that he composed Quatuor,
performed in 1941 by Messiaen himself and three
other prisoners of war. The score is introduced
by a few lines from the Apocalypse: «Then
I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven
wrapped in a cloud, with a halo around his head;
his face was like the sun and his feet were like
pillars of fire... He placed his right foot on
the sea and his left foot on the land ... Then
the angel I saw standing on the sea and on the
land raised his right hand to heaven and swore
by the one who lives forever and ever.... There
shall be no more delay; At the time when you hear
the seventh angel blow his trumpet, the mysterious
plan of God shall be fulfilled». Messiaen
translated these visions into the musical symbolism
of eight iridescent movements; the first six allude
to the days of the Creation, the seventh to the
day on which God rested and the last one to Eternity.
The musicians of the Ex Novo Ensemble perform
the Quatuor, while Sandro Cappelletto
renews for us all the miracle of a creative gesture
that marked the 20th Century.
