In 1940, the Germans captured a young French soldier and threw him into Stalag, a prisoner of war camp in Germany. Thus begins the legendary tale of Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. Like a great Hollywood drama, this young composer overcame all adversity to write one of the world's most revolutionary pieces of chamber literature. It is well known that the Nazi's had much respect for great musicians and composers, even giving them some special treatment in the camps. It was this reverence for music that allowed Messiaen to keep his knapsack full of scores when he was placed in Stalag and it was this same veneration that permitted Messiaen and the three musicians to prepare and perform this quartet for eternity.

Messiaen found in the three musicians: a cellist, violinist, and clarinetist Henry Akoka. The musicians were talented but as Messiaen tells in his recounts of the premiere, the instruments were far from the same quality. Messiaen was provided with an upright piano that was severely out of tune and the cellist only had three strings. It was under these pitiable circumstances that the quartet was premiered in 1941 in front of 5000 prisoners of war at Stalag. Despite the pitiful circumstances, Messiaen said that his work was never heard with greater understanding than at the Stalag premier.

The first movement begins with the awakening of the birds. Messiaen was well known for his vast knowledge and enthusiasm for the field of ornithology and bird calls can be heard in many of his works. Because of the limitations of a quartet, Messiaen alters the instrumentation in almost every movement to create a different sound. The third movement, Abyss of the Birds, is for clarinet alone. The fourth movement, the Interlude, is for the trio without piano. The fifth movement, Praise to the Eternity of Jesus, is an infinitely slow duet for cello and piano depicting time without end. The final movement, Praise to the Immortality of Jesus, is a duet for violin and piano and is counterpart to the fifth movement. Messiaen chose eighth movements because seven is the perfect number so and eighth extends that perfection into eternity.