I haven't chipped in with a recommendation, mainly because I can't remember
ever hearing a version of the Quartet for the End of Time which didn't
bring out some new and different aspect of this wonderful piece.  Perhaps
we should remember that it was a written for a group of musicians thrown
together by accident, not (with absolutely no direspect intended to them)
all of the very highest standard, and handicapped by instruments in very
poor condition.  Not to mention the circumstances in which they were living
at the time.  The only suggestion I have to make is that no recording can
match hearing a live performance, and that's the only way to hear the
QFTEOT properly.

I've long been fasinated by this piece (and I'm not, with a few other
major exceptions, a great lover of Messiaen's music).  In a recent poll
on a short-lived twentieth-century music mailing list it came equal top
with the Rite of Spring as Greatest Piece of Twentieth-Century Music, for
whatever that may be worth.  People who know it well rate it very highly
and tend to see it as "central" to their understanding of twentieth-century
music in a way that few other pieces can match (I fall into that group).
Others, often very well-informed, either don't know it at all or dismiss
it as a curiosity of little importance.  Why does it polarise reactions
so much? What pre-disposes people to take one view or the other? Is it
prejudice about what Messiaen's music sounds like? Something in the music
itself, or the circumstances of its composition? We've talked about
recordings - does anyone have a story to tell about how they discovered
the Quartet, or what it means to them?

Ian Crisp
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