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Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time

jimb0 said:
You aren't grabbing the full path to the static pic file on Flickr

Code: 
(IMG)http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3152/2561295549_df8b948de7.jpg(/IMG)
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OK. ICT for dummies: where did you grab that code from? I can't find it on my screen.

Re Chamber Music: my previous favourite was the Debussy/Ravel String Quartets which I would recommend to anyone.

My only sources of cheap vinyl are Oxfam shops. The main one in Oxford is very well stocked. Means you have to take from what is there but it has a good range, some of it reasonably priced -£3-4 a record, butht ey do mark up "rare" items.

Kevin
 
I went to one of your flickr links, chose the medium size picture then right-clicked the picture and chose 'Copy image location' (this is on Firefox/Mac but there will be an equivalent whatever browser/platform you are on). You then have the static/direct link to the picture which you can paste into your post.
 
jimb0 said:
I went to one of your flickr links, chose the medium size picture then right-clicked the picture and chose 'Copy image location' (this is on Firefox/Mac but there will be an equivalent whatever browser/platform you are on). You then have the static/direct link to the picture which you can paste into your post.
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Like this you mean?

2561295549_df8b948de7.jpg


2562122340_0169dd4a00.jpg



2561297359_2c122646cf.jpg


At last. A fine object I hope you all agree.

Cheers for the lessons.
Kevin
 
Nearly there - those are the correct URLs for the pics - edit your post and enclose them in IMG tags as per my example above (just change the round brackets for square ones).
 
JimbO, I'd like a star please. Preferably gold although you might think I just deserve Silver.

Kevin
 
Excellent! I'd forgotten it was a gatefold sleeve. Can we merge this thread with The Back Streets of American Psychedelia (Part Two)?
 
kjb said:
Where next with Messiaen? I've got quite a bit of his Organ music: I though maybe Les Canyons aux etoiles?

Kevin
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Les Canyons aux etoiles is a magnificent piece. I heard a superb performance from Reinbert de Leeuw and the Netherlands Youth Orchestra at the 2006 Edinburgh festival - the rather conservative classical listening public here meant that the Usher Hall was only about 20% full (and a few of them walked out) but I found it quite extraordinary.

It combines so much of Messiaen's ouput - it's a very religious work (though has the advantage of not having a text, so can be taken merely spiritually in a way that, say St Francis, cannot), it has a lot of birdsong. That said, there is no organ. Its evocations of the landscapes (the 3 canyons that give the work its title) are stunningly visual, as is the haunting movement for solo horn titled 'interstellar call', which creates far more vividly the outstanding beauty and emptiness of space than anything Holst wrote (to these ears).

That said, the only recording I have, de Leeuw's own with the Asko and Schoenberg ensembles doesn't quite capture the magic of the concert hall, I don't know if any of the others do.


On Saturday I was in Amsterdam to catch a rare performance of Messiaen's only opera - St Francis of Assisi. It's long (over 4 hours) and epic in both orchestrastration (requiring no fewer than three 'ondes Martenot' and five xylophones, well, they're all different actually, but five things from that family) and conception - as the production showed, the sermon to the birds is not the easiest thing in the world to bring off. Still, it was quite an experience.



I don't think knowing about Messiaen's exaggerations hurts the Quarter, which I agree is a wonderful piece (though if you think it might, read no further), from a review I wrote of a concert of the work I attended not too long ago:

Hill and the ensemble knew that you cannot possibly pair anything with the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (The Quartet for the End of Time, to those whose French is even more tenuous than mine). So instead of trying, or doing the obvious of not having anything (which still would have provided reasonable value), they chose instead to have Peter Hill give a talk. A noted Messiaen pianist, as anyone who has sampled his complete survey of the composer's piano music will be aware, he is also a scholar. According to the liner notes of his Messiaen recordings, he teaches at the University of Sheffield and has published books such as The Messiaen Companion, Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring and a biography of Messiaen with Nigel Simeone, not to mention making over 100 programme for the BBC.

These talents were on display as he gave us a brief history of Messiaen's life, illustrated musically at various points (including a few beautiful minutes of the composer improvising on the organ at the end of a church service as the congregation were meant to be leaving, as the applause attested they didn't, the music was interestingly unlike anything he wrote for the organ). Hill told us how Messiaen exaggerated the circumstances of the composition within a POW camp during world war two (to which all French soldiers seemed to have taken their musical instruments), the bizarre congregation of a pianist, clarinettist, violinist and cellist and the quartet that resulted. But the cello did not, as the composer liked to relate, have only 3 strings, nor was the premier outside to 5000 prisoners (as Hill remarked, a suspiciously biblical number from this most religious person), but rather in the camp's theatre to 400, many of whom were guards. He walked us through the movements, several of which had been written prior to meeting of the quartet. He was an engaging and informative speaker, and his Sheffield students are lucky.
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regards, Tam
 
kjb - you can have a glowing green star for being so special.


As part of my ongoing random attempts to 'get' classical I shall get hold of the Tashi version of the Quartet and a copy of 'The Rest is Noise' (been meaning to anyway).
 
Just a side-note, but this year's Cheltenham Music Festival will include a performance of the quartet. If anybody wants to hear it, and lives reasonably nearby, this may be an ideal opportunity.
 
I downloaded Quartet For The End Of Time, the Tashi one, and had a listen to it ... and ...

It's a bit boring really. Nothing particularly innovative, beautiful or moving.

Messiaen won't make Bach, Debussy or John Cage lose any sleep in their graves.

They might be from different time periods, but at least they were original.

Jack
 
jackbarron said:
I downloaded Quartet For The End Of Time, the Tashi one, and had a listen to it ... and ...

It's a bit boring really. Nothing particularly innovative, beautiful or moving.

Messiaen won't make Bach, Debussy or John Cage lose any sleep in their graves.

They might be from different time periods, but at least they were original.
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jack, are we to judge your sensibilities from the football postings?

it's also interesting that you were unfamiliar with the piece until downloading it just now, but entirely comfortable posturing as an authority on classical music.

i suspect my date would have actually killed you and i now figure i got off lightly.

vuk.
 
Jack, you have to live with it for a while. I first heard the piece 10 years ago, wasn't completely hooked in and left it on the shelf. Picked it out again while reading "The Rest is Noise", played it 3-4 times, saw a performance and then started to see what a wonderful piece it is.

Doesn't stand up at all next to the **** Buttons I suppose.

Kevin
 
Vuk, I am used to listening to music and passing judgement, it is what I used to do for a living. I worked as a music journalist for 15 years for publications like New Musical Express and Melody Maker.

Kevin, I'll try giving Quartet At The End Of Time another go.

I have thought about gettting a copy of The Rest Is Noise. Is it good?

Jack
 
jackbarron said:
Vuk, I am used to listening to music and passing judgement, it is what I used to do for a living. I worked as a music journalist for 15 years for publications like New Musical Express and Melody Maker.
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Aha, so you are that Jack Barron, the one that IIRC got hit by Nick Cave?! Respect!

Tony.
 
jackbarron said:
I have thought about gettting a copy of The Rest Is Noise. Is it good?

Jack
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I think it's great. I didn't know that much about 20th century classical music - I'd dipped in and out of things like Debussy and Reich but didn't have a clear sense of the narrative and patterns. It been expensive: I've bought a lot of msuic as a result. The website is good and as a range of samples -these are what have led me to the purchases. Got a box of Stravinsky, a small pile of Webern and some more Feldman on the go at the moment.

Ross is very good at explaining how the music works and is structured in a way that someone not fully au fait with musical theory can follow and he has an infectious enthusiasm.

I don't know enough about the music to say whether it is a good piece of classical scholarship but it is a very good primer. It also links the music clearly in to the changes in the world over the past 100 years which I found enhanced my enjoyment of the works.

Kevin
 
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