From the magazine

The mystical masterpiece from Stalag VIII-A

A meditation on Quartet for the End of Time, Oliver Messiaen’s great prison camp composition, should bring the strange, bird-fixated religious avant-gardist new admirers

Ian Thomson
Olivier Messiaen in 1962.  adoc.photos/Corbis via Getty Images
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 19 April 2025
issue 19 April 2025

  • Quartet for the End of Time: On Music, Grief & Birdsong

    Michael Symmons Roberts

    Jonathan Cape, pp. 283, £20

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY 3 MONTHS FOR $5
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Start your 3-month trial today for just $5 and subscribe to more than one view

Read next

Trending

Henry Hill

Conservatives all over the Anglosphere are paying the price for Trump

From the magazine
It is the great good fortune of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to be united by a common language, and a misfortune of even greater magnitude that they share that language with the United States. America is a very different country to the four Commonwealth realms sometimes brigaded together under the ugly acronym ‘Canzuk’.

More on birds

Also by Ian Thomson

Latest

Comments

Join the debate for just £1 a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.

Already a subscriber? Log in