Ian said:

>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 would tend to agree with this.

I am a performer (pianist) and also fond of Messiaen's music.  I have
performed the quartet three times.  It is hard to articulate what initially
attracted me to his music, or to say what about it continues to hold my
interest.  Certainly a part of it is Messiaen's ingenious eclecticism:
the bird calls, religious symbolism, compositional techniques such as
medieval-like isorhythm and pallindromic writing, added note values,
Messiaen's synesthesia, and of course it's origins in a P.O.W.  camp.  Yet
not all of the above techniques are present in each movement, and all of
the material did not originate from the same period.  To an extent he did
have to "make do" with the forces at hand.  As beautiful as each movement
is to me, I find the work as a whole to be uneven, disjointed, without
cohesion.  It does somehow "make sense" to play it in its entirety (even
though +- 45 minutes is an awkward length for a piece to program), and I
hope I get more opportunities to perform it again.  I certainly do not
"dismiss it as a curiosity." Yet, I'm not sure I would call it "central" to
20th century music understanding.  It is, however, a highly original and
ingenious work in so many respects.

So I suppose I'm sitting on the fence, forming a 3rd camp.

Dick Hihn