This book is rich, vibrant, and deep, a personal reckoning with loss, doubt, faith, and poetry, connected to one of the most celebrated musical works of the twentieth century, by the award-winning poet and librettist. The story unfolds in 1941, on a freezing winter night, when a new chamber music piece was presented to an audience of war captives featuring cello, clarinet, violin, and piano with sticky keys. It was the premiere of Quatuor pour la fin du Temps by Olivier Messiaen. Since then, listeners have been captivated by the haunting music and mythology of Messiaen's masterpiece. Michael Symmons Roberts, having discovered the Quartet in a record store during his teenage years and fallen in love with its title, seeks to understand its mysterious power. His fascination – sometimes frustration – with Messiaen's vision opens up an exploration of loss, personal faith and doubt, the end of time, and whatever may lie beyond it. Embedded with poetry and humor, this book is an extensive representation of music, loss, hope, and time, through the lens of the colorful and revelatory vision of the Quartet. Quatuor pour la fin du Temps is a poignant, intimate, and unforgettable book, attentive to the ways of listening – in a noisy world – to the song of birds, music, poems, and the silence of the radio, and to the call and response we may find.

“A truly captivating exploration of music, place, religion, and what it means to be human” SARAH TARLOW, author of The Archaeology of Loss

Pages: 304, Dimensions: 14.4x14.4cm