Example research essay topic: End Of Time Prisoner Of War - 1,223 words

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an account of the technical and interpretative challenges presented to performers in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 1992) played a significant part in the evolution of twentieth-century music, influencing a number of other composers with his innovative compositional techniques. The Quartet for the End of Time, is not one of Messiaen's typical works due to the circumstances in which it was composed (his main outputs were organ, orchestral and choral works), but it marks the start of the significant use of some of these techniques. In 1940, Messiaen was called up to serve in the army as a hospital orderly, but was soon captured by the Germans and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp. Here, suffering from food deprivation and extreme cold, he had the idea of composing a piece for the End of Time. There were four musicians on the camp himself (a pianist), a violinist, a cellist and a clarinettist and so he wrote a quartet.

Performers of the work need to consider the circumstances under which the piece was composed and also the reaction it created at the first performance of it. This was in front of the entire prison camp in January 1941 where, says Messiaen, never have I been listened to with such attention and understanding. Messiaen had no choice on what instruments the piece was written for, the group of instruments to large to allow the piano to express itself freely, yet too small to obtain variety of timbre, and his way around this was to obtain maximum variety of which they are capable. By exploiting each instrument in so many different ways to create different timbres, the technical challenges faced by the performers are endless. Musicians need to be of an excellent standard to achieve, for example: a) String harmonics, see Quote 1 b) Long, sustained pp passages in the string parts, see Quote 2 c) Piano: quiet passages must still be projected as chords are creating a necessary background colour, see Quote 3 I will also be looking into how Messiaen uses extremes of dynamics and range for timbre and textural effects and the challenges these presents. Interpretative challenges presented by theological ideas behind the Quatuor The Quatuor is based on Revelation 10. 1 - 7, in particular the phrase there shall be no more time.

Time is represented musically in different ways throughout the Quatuor and the addition of this theological basis to the piece may well have been prompted by the prisoner-of-war conditions in which he found himself, in which time might indeed have seemed literally endless, and the Apocalypse close at hand. It is difficult to know, though, to what extent this theological basis must be considered and portrayed when performing the Quartet for the End of Time. The words that it is based on appear in the title and preface, but the challenge to the performer is deciding to what extent the text should be interpreted as a narrative or programme. Similar challenges are presented by Romantic music; if a composer does not provide an explicit programme e.

g. Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique it is up to the performer to interpret whether one was meant and to what extent it should be portrayed in a performance. The deciding factor in the case of the Quatuor is to consider movements 5 and 8, taken directly from Messiaen's earlier works Ftes des belles eaux (1937: Organ) and Diptique (1930: 6 onde's martinets) respectively. There were no theological implications in these works, although Messiaen may have just chosen to keep these hidden. However, the performer may draw the conclusion that he has re-worked these particular pieces because of their link to the idea of abolishment of musical time and interpret from the following quotations what he may: I did not in any sense want to comment upon the Apocalypse.

My only wish was to articulate my desire for the dissolution of time. Messiaen Do not be preoccupied with all this [descriptive analysis] when you perform; simply play the score, the notes and the exact values, the marked nuances. Messiaen The true challenge presented to the performers concerning the theological background of the composition, though, is the way in which it reflects the idea of the end of time and illusions of heaven, although not in a programmatic sense as discussed. When, playing in the ensemble it is easy to become mesmerized by the hypnotic repetition (iso rhythm in movement 1), colour chords (piano part), slow speeds (movements 3, 5 and 8 particularly), and sustained notes (e. g.

cello part in movement 5). Once rehearsals in the ensemble and unmitigated practice of the separate parts have been completed the most difficult challenge of all is to be faced; concentration. This is not so much of a technical challenge but is linked to interpretation. Messiaen has created an evocative and reflective piece of music and each member of the ensemble is part of it at all times if it is to be perceived in this way by the audience. Technical challenges created by the 5 musical means of expression Messiaen builds his theological meanings into the Quartet for the End of Time, through five principal means of musical expression: i) modes ii) expanded pedals iii) added values iv) progressive enlargement and contraction of intervals v) the chord on the dominant He talks about these in his Technique de mon language musical (1944).

I will be looking at added values and other rhythmical features, and the chord on the dominant, as a means of abolishment of traditional musical conceptions. These provide technical challenges to a performer used to playing most music written before the turn of the twentieth-century. Messiaen disliked artificial rhythm i. e. symmetrical, divisible note values common of Western tonal music. He found ways of creating more natural rhythms.

One of these was the idea of added values (or additive rhythm - taken from the principle of the dei-tla's of Sharngadeva) where the addition to a rhythm makes its value irregular. I spoke before the influence of Messiaen's music on the music of composers since. Additive rhythm was an important innovation in twentieth-century music and has been used by composers such as Stravinsky in his disreputable Rite of Spring. For common examples of how a rhythmic cell is made irregular see Example 4. For examples of added values in the context of the work Quartet for the End of Time see Quotes 5, 6 and 7, where they are indicated by brackets. For a performer to find these rhythms relatively simple they need to be familiar with them.

The musicians at the prisoner-of-war camp in 1941 would have found added values a particular challenge as they had not come across the music of Messiaen before and so inexperienced with irregular rhythms and lack of pulse and time signature. Aware of this, Messiaen composed movement 4, Intercede, first, for the three musicians as an exercise in octaves to introduce them to some of his compositional techniques. Although his characteristic rhythmic complexities were generally avoided there are very few added values. Performers today are more experienced with such rhythmic complexities (as I have already mentioned, they have continued to have been used in twentieth-century music), and are used to having to count rhythms in terms of smaller note values i. e. semi qua...

Research essay sample on End Of Time Prisoner Of War