Quartet for the end of time : on music, grief and birdsong

Roberts, Michael Symmons, 1963-2025

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Summary

Here is a personal reckoning with grief, doubt, faith and poetry set to one of the most celebrated musical works of the twentieth century, from the award-winning poet and librettist. The story goes like this: on a freezing winter night in 1941, a new piece of chamber music was performed to a crowd of prisoners of war on a three-stringed cello, clarinet, violin and pub piano with sticky keys. It was the premiere of Olivier Messiaen's 'Quatuor pour la fin du Temps'. Listeners since then have been captivated by the ecstatic music and mythology of Messiaen's masterpiece. 'Quartet for the End of Time' is a moving, intimate and unforgettable book, attentive to ways of listening - in our noisy world - to birdsong, music, poems and radio silence, and to the call and response that we may find.