Product Description
Quartet for the End of Time
Author: Michael Symmons Roberts
Format: Paperback
On Music, Grief and Birdsong
'Wonderful' — Spectator
'This is a remarkable book' — TLS
A personal reckoning with grief, doubt, faith and poetry set to one of the most celebrated musical works of the twentieth century, from the award-winning poet and librettist.
Strange, ecstatic and apocalyptic - listeners of Olivier Messiaen's masterpiece, Quartet for the End of Time, have been captivated by its music and mythology since the first extraordinary performance in a prisoner of war camp in 1941.
After discovering his music by chance as a teenager, Michael Symmons Roberts's own fascination with the Quartet leads him on a quest to understand its enigmatic power.
What follows is a moving, unforgettable exploration of grief, of personal faith and doubt, of the end of time and what may lie beyond it.
'A rich, lively, profound book' — Rowan Williams
'An outstanding writer' — Sunday Times
About the Author
Michael Symmons Roberts was born in Preston, Lancashire. He has published eight collections of poetry and received a number of accolades including the Forward Prize, the Costa Poetry Award and the Whitbread Poetry Prize. His Selected Poems was published in 2016. As a librettist, his work has been performed in concert halls and opera houses around the world, and he is an award-winning broadcaster and dramatist. He is professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, his Quartet for the End of Time: On Music, Grief and Birdsong was published in 2025.
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