#12 (re-visited) Messiaen - Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Barenboim)

Oliver Messiaen: Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Quartet for the End of Time) (1940).

OK, I promised to listen to this again post-hangover so here we go (not that it's taken this long to get rid of the hangover).

I really enjoyed this second time round. As I often find with more tonally challenging music I found the slower movements easier at first. I guess it's down to being able to hear the harmonies unfold rather than being hit with them all in one go, as you often are in the faster sections.

My favourite track at this point is 5 - Louange a l'Eternite de Jesus - but there's clearly plenty in the work as a whole that will unfold as my ears get used to it and hear past the 'easier' bits.

Glad I came back to it. There will be a new disc later today

#12 Messiaen - Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Barenboim)

Oliver Messiaen: Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (Quartet for the End of Time) (1940).

I bought this after reading Alex Ross's wonderful The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century


In truth I did what I always do with music books that are well written - I blast through and don't take time to listen to the music the author is talking about at the time. I did this with Humphrey Carpenter's Britten biography amongst (many) others.

I listened to it on headphones at 10 in the morning at work with a hangover so I have no idea whether I liked it or not. Judgement is reserved but I will revisit this in another post when my brain is capable of listening properly.

In the meantime I will endeavour to get back to the book from the beginning and do some extensive listening after I read each chapter. May take some time but that's fine by me.