Richibi’s Weblog

if a trio is a sonata written for three instruments,

a sonata, a piece of music consisting of more 

than one segment, or movement, written for 

four instruments, is called a quartet

 

a quartet is also what we call the group itself

of four players

 

quartets can play more than just quartets, they 

can also play waltzes, nocturnes, rhapsodies, 

for instance, just as trios, groups of three, can

play more than just trios 

 

but quartets, the form, have had a long and 

glorious history, from Mozart and Haydn, 

the Classicists, through Beethoven, an 

ardent Romantic, to the more political 

Shostakovich, enemy, for a time, of his 

repressive Soviet state, and on to 

Messiaen, who composed his own 

Quartet for the End of Time, in a Nazi 

concentration camp

 

let me start with the Messiaen, now that I’ve

whetted your appetite, and work our way back 

to Mozart to see where we came from, and 

how

 

there are seven movements in Quartet for

the End of Time, not the Classical three or

four, atonality abounds, discordant, not 

unexpectedly, progressions, repetition also 

takes its punches, not easily identifiable 

throughout, but tempo, the third pillar of 

Western music, more or less holds its 

own, keeping the tradition, however 

precariously, together, listen

 

it’s 1941, we’re in a concentration camp,  

Messiaen is caught between hope and 

despair, give the guy a break, he hasn’t 

many absolutes to hold onto, tempo 

might be one of them, the heartbeat,

pulse, perseverance, an actual human 

pace, a rhythmic instinct, by which 

eventually, hopefully, meaning 

transpires

 

hope is in one’s creativity, he says, each 

individual answer can be a tribute to

one’s own tribulations, our responses 

can be poetry, lessons rather than

invectives, epiphanies rather than

agonies, may the Force, in other words, 

be with you, in the face of even the most

trying difficulties, honour can supplant 

trials, he concludes, given grace and 

integrity

 

Beethoven says pretty much the same 

thing in his last piano sonata, remember,

his Opus 111, listen, a not not impressive

corroboration

 

 

R ! chard