Seen and Heard International, Jeremy Chan

… this evening I attended a chamber concert by the London Sinfonietta [at Queen Elizabeth Hall] which had Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) as its centrepiece. Catching a glimpse of Messiaen’s mesmerising sound world for the first time can be revelatory, but gaining a deeper understanding of his music by absorbing more of his works served to make him even more of a fascinating composer to me.

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I was particularly impressed by the clarinet solo in the third movement [of the Messiaen], ‘Abîme des oiseaux’;

Robert Plane paid close attention to the sound he was making in the hall, and his ‘birdsong’ really grew until it filled the whole space. But just as his sound could grow infinitely large, so his quiet moments could be so infinitesimally small that one really had to strain one’s ears to hear the sound, making it all the more exquisite. Hearing his solo was a wonderful experience.

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