Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time: Visions of Eternity

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One of the 20th century’s most mystical and transcendent works was created in a frigid, overcrowded German prisoner-of-war camp during the gloomy second winter of World War II. It was not his captivity, nor premonitions of a coming fiery apocalypse that inspired Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) to compose the provocatively titled Quartet for the End of Time (“Quatuor pour la fin du temps”), but serene spiritual visions of the “eternity of space and …

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Michael Torke’s “Bloom 2, Morning”: Music for Percussion Ensemble

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Bloom, the newest album by American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961),  will be released on August 30. The eleven movement work was written for, and recorded by, Sandbox Percussion. With an exuberant, infectious rhythmic groove, Bloom develops over three musical “days,” with movements titled “morning, noon, night.” With repeating patterns, it rides the visceral pulse of the contemporary dance floor. In his program note, the composer writes, BLOOM uses interlocking rhythms which, when …

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Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov”: Two Recordings of Pimen’s Monologue

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In the haunting opening measures of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Ninth String Quartet, an undulating line, emerging first in the second violin and then sliding stealthily into other inner voices, snakes forward, as if to draw us into an unfolding musical narrative. The line which wanders into Shostakovich’s String Quartet of 1964 is the same undulating figure we hear throughout Pimen’s Monologue, which opens the first act of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera, Boris Godunov, composed between …

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Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat Major: A Poignant Musical Diary

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Musicologist Kai Christensen describes Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets as “a personal diary of poignant reactions, reflection, and dark visions.” Nowhere is this more apparent than in the middle quartets. Shostakovich dedicated his Seventh Quartet to the memory of his first wife, Nina, who died in December of 1954 at the age of 46. Outwardly, the iconic and emotionally raw Eighth String Quartet was “dedicated to victims of war and fascism.” Privately, …

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Duke Ellington’s “Paris Blues”: Music from the 1961 Film Score

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The 1961 film Paris Blues, starring Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier, tells the story of two expatriate American jazz musicians who are living in 1960s Paris. Dedicated to their artistry, the two are confronted with difficult choices when they meet and fall in love with two American female tourists. The film’s score, written by Duke Ellington, features performances by Ellington’s Orchestra, with Louis Armstrong appearing on two tracks. At the 34th Academy …

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Bartók’s Études, Op 18: Daring Technical Exercises for Solo Piano

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Béla Bartók’s three Études, Op 18 for solo piano are daring, both technically and musically. Composed in 1918, they were intended to push the limits as pedagogical studies. The influence of Chopin, Debussy (whose piano Études were written three years earlier), and Schoenberg is evident. The three brief Études follow the traditional fast-slow-fast format. The first unleashes an exhilarating, demonic motor, punctuated with the accents of Hungarian folk music and language. In …

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Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4: Fearful Symmetry

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The greatest music requires deep, active listening. You can’t just put it on in the background and allow it to waft over you as you go about other tasks. It demands undivided attention. Initially, it may seem wildly incomprehensible. Its meaningfulness may be revealed gradually over the course of repeated listenings. Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4, composed in Budapest during the summer of 1928, is one of those mysterious and monumental …

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