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The mystical masterpiece from Stalag VIII-A

A meditation on Quartet for the End of Time, Oliver Messiaen’s great prison camp composition, should bring the strange, bird-fixated religious avant-gardist new admirers

19 April 2025

9:00 AM

19 April 2025

9:00 AM

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer steeped in the solitude and ecstasy of Catholic mysticism: everything he wrote was dedicated to the greater glory of God. He was in thrall to the liturgical works of Stravinsky, but also to the percussive cling-clang of Javanese gamelan music and other eastern sonorities.

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