Quartet for the End of Time

On Music, Grief and Birdsong

Michael Symmons Roberts

$45

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

JONATHAN CAPE
29 July 2025

Music; 20th century & contemporary classical music; Memoirs; Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge; Popular philosophy

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.

'This is a rich, lively, profound book' ROWAN WILLIAMS

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.

The story goes like this- on a freezing winter night in 1941, a new piece of chamber music was performed to a crowd of prisoners of war on a three-stringed cello, clarinet, violin and pub piano with sticky keys. It was the premiere of Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du Temps.

Listeners since then have been captivated by the ecstatic music and mythology of Messiaen's masterpiece. Michael Symmons Roberts' own lifelong fascination with the Quartet- having chanced upon it in a record shop in his late teens and fallen in love with its title - leads him on a quest to understand its enigmatic power. His fascination - at times frustration - with Messiaen's vision opens into an exploration of grief, of personal faith and doubt, of the end of time and what may lie beyond it. Interwoven with poetry and wit, this book is an expansive evocation of music, loss, hope and time, seen through the lens of the Quartet's technicolour, apocalyptic vision.

Quartet for the End of Time is a moving, intimate and unforgettable book, attentive to ways of listening - in our noisy world - to birdsong, music, poems and radio silence, and to the call and response that we may find.

'A properly engrossing exploration of music, place, religion and what it is to be human' SARAH TARLOW, author of The Archaeology of Loss

By: Michael Symmons Roberts
Imprint: JONATHAN CAPE
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 225mm, Width: 144mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 409g
ISBN: 9781787331853
ISBN 10: 1787331857
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 29 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Michael Symmons Roberts is a poet and librettist. His eight books of poetry have received accolades including the Forward Prize, the Costa Poetry Award and the Whitbread Poetry Prize. His words for music have been performed in concert halls and opera houses around the world. He is also an award-winning broadcaster and radio dramatist. Born in Preston, Lancashire, he is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Reviews for Quartet for the End of Time: On Music, Grief and Birdsong

I love Michael Symmons Roberts' poetry. He is a religious poet in a secular age. His work is about connection between the things of the spirit and the things of the world. And his work is about transcendence -- Jeanette Winterson 'Every sentence is beautifully assembled and polished... A properly engrossing exploration of music, place, religion and what it is to be human' -- Sarah Tarlow, author of THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF LOSS An outstanding writer * Sunday Times * He displays an amazing talent for intimacy on paper – sometimes, it almost takes your breath away * Observer *