Messiaen's Piano

Messiaen's piano

throws notes like handfuls of stones

to clatter

against a glasshouse

God:

birds’

arrhythmic hearts,

they’re precipitated into the bluster

and terror of spring.

The beautiful world hardly responds

yet these go on – chorus, soloist. Make a joyful noise

unto the Lord.

Are you glass –

your absence a mirror?

Well, I lob stones.

Far off,

as from a distant copse,

hear what bodies do:

suspension,

interruption.

That long, perfect fall.

FIONA SAMPSON

Messiaen

for Christel and Alexander Baillie

Conceived and written in the course of my captivity, the Quartet for the End of Time was performed for the first time in Stalag-A on January 15, 1941 …

Olivier Messiaen

1

Slowly, as the theme

Becomes your face,

Its agonies of grace

Appal, yet seem

At rest, declare

All pain resolved

To liberty and held

On safe, immaculate air.

2

The pizzicato of a quick

Grief plucks at its bars –

Your dreams release each prisoner’s

Pride from his panic.

3

The world prepares its instruments. Whoever cries

Keeps time with Time and learns to temporise.

4

After the last held note

Returns us to ourselves, we cling

To your gift, the sustaining

Promise of silence,

And we live in hope

As you did, as your innocence

Survived the cut-throat

Darkness of Europe.

JOHN MOLE