»War and Peace« – clarinettist Pablo Barragán at Hamburg International Music Festival 2024
 
AERIALS: Felix Lübbert
10:12min, DE 2024

The vast St. Nikolai Memorial is located very close to the Elbphilharmonie. Destroyed in bombing raids in 1943, the ruins of this former church are now a central place of remembrance for the victims of the Nazi regime. Marking the 2024 Hamburg International Music Festival, and this year’s theme of »War and Peace«, the acclaimed clarinettist Pablo Barragán performs a work by Olivier Messiaen in the expansive nave of this memorial. For this very special »Elbphilharmonie Session«, he devotes his attention to »Abîme des oiseaux« from the famous »Quatuor pour la fin du temps«, which the French composer completed and premiered in 1941 while a German prisoner of war. Here, surrounded by the poignant significance of this space, this music seems to dissolve space and time – with long, floating lines and sounds that appear to come from nowhere.

»It is quite powerful to experience the work in this place. This music is very much about hope.«

— Pablo Barragán

The end of space and time

About Messsiaen’s »Abîme des oiseaux« (from »Quatuor pour la fin du temps«)

First performed in 1941 in a German prisoner-of-war camp near Görlitz, Olivier Messiaen’s »Quatuor pour la fin du temps« (»Quartet for the End of Time«) is now one of the most important works of chamber music of the past century. The French composer was called up for military service in 1939 and taken prisoner by the Germans in his first year of service. The fact that he was allowed to compose there at all is thanks to a commandant who provided him with paper and let him into the camp church. The unusual formation of this quartet, for clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano, was the result, not least, of the musicians imprisoned with him and the composer himself at the piano. Despite the prevailing cold and the dire circumstances, the quartet even had a premiere performance in January 1941 in front of an audience of around 400 prisoners – a moving moment in the midst of the terrible reality of the camp. »The most diverse classes of society were mingled: farmers, factory workers, intellectuals, professional servicemen, doctors and priests. Never before have I been listened to with such attention and understanding,« the composer recalled many years later.

 

www.elbphilharmonie.de/de/mediathek/elbphilharmonie-sessions-pablo-barragan/978