Chocolachillie

Music for the end of the world

At first I didn’t understand our friend Benjamin’s shock upon learning the time of L’s birth.

9:00 on Saturday 5 November 2005.

Sure, it coincided with his (Bejamin is a pianist) performance of Messiaen’s work. I got to know some of Messiaen’s music through Benjamin and have always liked it immensely.

But now he has forwarded us Messiaen’s history and in particular the history of the piece: “Quartet for the end of time”.

A birth is always an end to an old life and the beginning of a new one.

L’s birth was an end to innocence, but a beginning to joy; an end to pride and a beginning to endurance, meekness and patience; an end to self-sufficiency and a beginning to trusting absolutely; the apocalypse of an old life, the start of a new life.

Reading this I sat in front of my computer with tears running down my cheeks. I quote parts from First Things: Music for the End of the World by Michael R. Linton.

“But I am pretty confident as to what the century’s most miraculous work is. Composed and premiered in a German prisoner-of-war camp, Olivier Messiaen’s 1941 quartet for piano, clarinet, cello, and violin is a piece of musical radiance, joy, and transcendence in the midst of squalor and misery. In other words, it’s a miracle.

I have called the work a miracle. Certainly, any masterpiece is a kind of miracle. And it can be called miraculous that Messiaen found himself imprisoned where his abilities would not only be recognized by the camp commander, but encouraged and even rewarded by a performance. But what is most miraculous about this quartet is its character. This is deeply irenic and joyous music, yet it is written in a prison camp, by a prisoner, in the middle of a war, about the end of the world. This is not the kind of work one would most likely expect under such circumstances.

This piece is entirely about the work of God and the glory of Jesus. There is no darkness here. There is no bitterness. There is no rage. Instead there is power, light, transcendence, ecstasy, and joy eternal.”

I now understand Benjamin better. And, knowing a little boy currently * imprisoned by a body that does not obey his pure spirit and courage, whose existence is a miracle to us and everyone who has taken the time to get to know him, I can only bow down to “power, light, transcendence, ecstasy and joy eternal…”

*Note: currently