kamara.hu/2 Presented by Liszt Academy

How many different ways can time influence music? For example, the speed of composition. There are works completed in virtually the blink of an eye, others have a gestation period of years. In the oeuvre of Schumann, 1840 is commonly known as the ‘Year of Song’ since this is when he wrote more than 100 such works. They are characterized by amazingly rich emotion, playfulness, softness and fierce outbursts. On the other hand, Gabriel Fauré, whose music style most closely paralleled Proust’s literary language, was only able to complete his first piano quintet – having discovered the ‘forgotten’ melody – after 15 years of strenuous experimentation. One of the most significant chamber music works of the 20th century, Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time), owes its movements comprising solo, duo, trio and quartet to the fact that the composer, suffering as a POW of the Germans, gradually discovered musicians among his fellow prisoners. Naturally, the inner time of music is also exciting: Schumann’s song cycle introducing various emotions takes the listener on a journey that jumps back and forth in both time and space, whereas Messiaen sets infinity, supernatural time to music.