Word: quatuor
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...Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum, for wind and percussion (1964), may be the most explicit example of his penchant for the ineffable, but the composer's acute sensitivity to the human condition is found in more intimate pieces as well. Chief among these, and his most famous work, is the Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (1941), for piano, clarinet, violin and cello, a moving confessional made all the more poignant by its having been written in a concentration camp. Forty years later, nearing the end of his life, Messiaen completed the masterpiece toward which his entire compositional life had been aiming...
Nearly as important as the poems themselves is the music by Oliver Messiaen. Written while a Nazi prisoner of war, Messiaen's "Quatuor pour lafin" is highly discordant and provocative. Sullivan alternates the poems' natural divisions with those in the music, imposing lengthy pauses, perhaps for speculation. The four musicians, Yoon-Sun Lee on piano, John Montgomery on clarinet, Alan Gilbert on violin and Ruth Maurice on cello are all first rate, contributing to a carefully crafted and entertaining production...
...Pulitzer Prize and of the 1961 New York Music Critics Circle award, it has been recorded (by RCA Victor) and in the single year since its premiere, it has been played at most of the major European festivals. In various program notes around the world, it is known as Quatuor à Cordes No. 2, or Streichquartess Nr. 2, or simply String Quartet No. 2, by New York's Elliott Cook Carter...
...striking. Also effective is "The Ox-Cart Driver's Song" for soprano and piano, sung by Elsic Houston with plenty of barbaric yawp. The song is impressive even if you don't care for barbaric yawp; if you do, it's doubly powerful. The last selection in the album, "Quatuor" for flute, harp, celesta, and women's voices, is something of a disappointment. Written during a period of strong Debussy influence, it is overly imitative, and except for the delightful last movement lacks the imagination and freshness of the other pieces...
...Music programs are usually above reproach. But the Lewisohn dancers (who still retain the name of "the Neighborhood Playhouse") offended many a purist with their miming of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Harpist Carlos Salzedo's arrangements of Troubadour airs, Ernest Bloch's Quatuor a Cordes. Critic Olin Downes of the New York Times wrote: "It is not possible to refer dispassionately to the complete misrepresentation of the noble music of Bach. To this music of Gothic design and Apocalyptic splendor the audience was privileged to behold the strange struttings, posings, leapings...