[Publius]

HOLY WEEK AND EASTER

This movement is one of the most haunting things Messiaen ever wrote. It’s a solo for clarinet where it imitates birds, an air raid siren and an echo. There is neither time signature nor key signature, and the bar lengths are uneven. Messiaen gives a basic pulse of eighth note = 44 and says go with that. It’s marked “slow, expressive and sad”.

Messiaen: “Quartet for the End of Time”, (“Abyss of Birds”)

[Kathy in Alaska]

Thanks, Publius, for the music for Holy Week and Easter. ((HUGS))