When four members of the Ensemble Monterey Chamber Orchestra tackle Olivier Messiaen’s landmark Quartet For The End Of Time this weekend, conductor John Anderson won’t be conducting. “This piece is so far from having any kind of regular rhythm that the thought of a conductor has no application whatsoever,” Anderson says. “I’d call it un-conductible.”
Everything about the piece is unusual. Not only are traditional notions of rhythm absent, but its melodies are fueled by actual birdsongs, which Messiaen transcribed into traditional musical notation.
The work’s genesis was also uncommon. Penned when the French composer was incarcerated at Nazi POW camp Stalag VIII-A in Görlitz, Germany, the premiere was Jan. 15, 1941, outdoors in freezing rain before 400 prisoners and prison guards on makeshift instruments like a three-string cello and a decrepit upright piano, along with clarinet and violin – an atypical instrumentation.
“It’s one of the great pieces of last century,” Anderson says. “It’s rarely heard because it’s so difficult. I’d give it a 20 on a scale of 10.”
Anderson gave his four musicians the score over a year ago, and it’s only now ready for performance.
“That’s how long it takes because you can’t approach it with a normal mindset like any other piece,” he says. “Something which doesn’t always have an identifiable beat is foreign in our musical world.”
The work shares rarefied air with classical music’s greatest like the Beethoven Ninth’s Ode To Joy, Mozart’s Requiem or Bach’s St. Matthew Passion because, like those masterworks, it changes people.
“Messiaen was devoutly religious,” Anderson says. “Here we are entering his vision of heaven, where time ceases to exist and things become eternal. Hearing this piece is transformative. I’ve only heard it a few times. But every time you come away a changed person.”
The eight-movement work clocks at just under an hour, and is the only piece on the program.
“After the intensities you’ve just been through, it’s impossible to hear anything else and have it work,” Anderson says.
He gives a pre-concert lecture 6:30pm; the program repeats 7pm Sunday at Peace United Church in Santa Cruz.
QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME 7:30 pm Saturday, March 3. St. Philip’s Lutheran Church, 8065 Carmel Valley Road, Carmel Valley. $40; $30/seniors; $10/students. 333-1283, ensemblemonterey.org