Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time

French composer Olivier Messiaen wrote his seminal chamber work Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) while he was a prisoner of the German army during World War II. The first performance, given for an audience of about four hundred of his fellow prisoners of war and their prison guards in Stalag VIII-A, resonates as poignant example of the transformative power of music even in the most dire circumstances.
Speaker Biography: James Wintle is a music specialist at the Library of Congress and a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at the University of North Texas.