Le Balcon

Olivier Messiaen
Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940-1941)

I. Crystal Liturgy

"Between three and four in the morning, the birds wake up: a blackbird or nightingale soloist improvises, surrounded by a dusting of sound, a halo of trills lost high up in the trees. Transpose this to the religious plane, and you have the harmonious silence of heaven."

II. Vocalise, for the Angel who announces the end of time

"The first and third parts (very short) evoke the power of this strong Angel, crowned with rainbow and clothed in cloud, who places one foot on the sea and one on the earth. The “middle” is the impalpable harmonies of heaven. On the piano, gentle cascades of blue-orange chords surround the almost plain-chantsque melody of the violin and cello with their distant chimes."

III. Birds abyss

"The abyss is Time, with its sadness and weariness. Birds are the opposite of Time; they are our desire for light, stars, rainbows and jubilant vocalizations!"

IV. Interlude

“Scherzo, more exterior in character than the other movements, but linked to them, however, by a few melodic ‘recalls’.”

V. Praise for the Eternity of Jesus

"Jesus is considered here as the Word. A great phrase, infinitely slow, from the cello, magnifies with love and reverence the eternity of this powerful and gentle Word [...] Majestically, the melody spreads out, in a kind of tender and sovereign distance."

VI. Danse de la fureur, for seven trumpets

"Rhythmically, the most characteristic piece of the series. The four unison instruments sound like gongs and trumpets (the first six trumpets of the Apocalypse followed by various catastrophes, the trumpet of the seventh angel announcing the consummation of the mystery of God). Use of added value, augmented or diminished rhythms, non-retrogradable rhythms. Music of stone, formidable granite sound; irresistible movement of steel, enormous blocks of crimson fury, of icy intoxication. Listen above all to the terrible fortissimo of the theme by increasing and changing the register of its various notes, towards the end of the piece."

VII. Clutter of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of time

"Some passages from the second movement return here. The Angel full of strength appears, and above all the rainbow that covers him (the rainbow, symbol of peace, wisdom and all luminous and sonorous vibrations). - In my dreams, I hear and see classified chords and melodies, known colors and shapes; then, after this transitory stage, I pass into the unreal and undergo with ecstasy a whirling, gyrating compenetration of superhuman sounds and colors. Those swords of fire, those flows of blue-orange lava, those sudden stars: there's the mess, there's the rainbows!"

VIII. Praise for the Immortality of Jesus

"This second praise is addressed more especially to the second aspect of Jesus, to Jesus-Man, to the Word made flesh, risen immortal to communicate his life to us. She is all love. Its slow ascent to the highest point is the ascent of man towards his God, of the child of God towards his Father, of the divinized creature towards Paradise."

Olivier Messiaen