Creation as Resistance

"Quartet for the End of Time" from WW2 German Prison Camp

Some inspiration from a WW2 German prison camp…..

Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992) was a French composer, organist, and devout Catholic who composed “Quartet for the End of Time” while imprisoned at Stalag VIIIA in Görlitz, Silesia. It was premiered in the camp on January 15, 1941, to an audience of prisoners and guards.

It is a profound 50-minute chamber masterpiece for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, composed and premiered in 1941 while he was a prisoner of war in Germany. Inspired by the Book of Revelation, describing an angel who announces that “there should be time no longer.” The eight-movement work is a, introspective, and spiritual meditation on apocalypse, transcendence, and eternity.

Melissa Dalton-Bradford shares about this extraordinary story as form of Resistance through Creation.