Akoka: Reframing Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time

by David Krakauer, Matt Haimovitz, Socalled, Geoffrey Burleson, Jonathan Crow

Overview

Here, the graphics inform, is a "reframing" of Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, the majuscule not being sufficiently hip for the concept. How is it usually "framed?" By, according to cellist Matt Haimovitz, "the confines of a normal chamber music performance," although the work's first performance, in a German prisoner-of-war camp, was anything but normal. The honoree designated by the title was clarinetist Henri Akoka, the original performer of the work's clarinet part. He was an Algerian-born Jew who seemed to be in mortal danger even as Messiaen himself was being released, but survived by leaping from a train with his clarinet and making his way to occupied Marseille. Akoka is apparently the subject of the program's stated aim of bringing out "the human aspect of this composition seen through the eyes of one individual caught up in terrifying events beyond his control." Deployed in support of this aim are a prelude, Akoka, by clarinetist David Krakauer, in a sort of extended klezmer language, and a postlude, the electronic collage by hip-hop artist socalled, which samples the quartet itself and adds beats, bits of radio broadcasts, and Jewish singing. In between these works are the eight movements of the Quartet for the End of Time itself, electronically amplified. There is nothing wrong with these ideas in themselves, and the obvious analogues between hip-hip and concert-music collage techniques remain to be fully explored. ~ James Manheim

Product Details

Release Date:	04/07/2017
Label:	Pentatone Classics
UPC:	0827949056062
Rank:	24499

Tracks

1. Akoka
2. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~I. Liturgie de cristal
3. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~II. Vocalise, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps
4. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~III. Ab¿¿me des oiseaux
5. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~IV. Interm¿¿de
6. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~V. Louange ¿¿ l' ¿¿ternit¿¿ de J¿¿sus
7. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~VI. Danse de le fureur, pour les sept trompettes
8. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~VII. Fouillis d' arcs-en-ciel, pour l' Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps
9. Quatuor pour la fin du temps~VIII. Louange ¿¿ l'Immortalit¿¿ de J¿¿sus
10. Meanwhile

Album Credits

Performance Credits

David Krakauer   Primary Artist,Clarinet
Matt Haimovitz   Primary Artist,Cello
Socalled   Primary Artist
Jonathan Crow   Primary Artist,Violin
Geoffrey Burleson   Primary Artist,Piano
Geoff Nuttall   Violin,Sampled Violin
Frederic Chiu   Piano,Sampled Piano
Josh Dolgin   Electronics

Technical Credits

Pascal Shefteshy   Recording Editor,Engineer
Socalled   Producer,Composer
Josh Dolgin   Composer,Producer
Ryan Morey   Mastering
Brett Leonard   Mixing Assistant
Doyuen Ko   Engineer
Olivier Messiaen   Composer
Michael Kogan   Project Coordinator
Luna Pearl Woolf   Producer
Richard King   Mixing
David Krakauer   Composer