Olivier Messiaen - Quaturo pour la fin du temps (1941) Click here to listen! Quatuor pour la fin du temps Inspiration This work was inspired by text from the Book of Revelation and it is quoted in Messiaen's Preface in the score. "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth .... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever ... that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished ..." (Rev 10:1–2, 5–7, King James Version) Messiaen's notes on the first movement " Between three and four in the morning, the awakening of birds: a solo blackbird or nightingale...