The Architecture of Time

I have always loved drawing the architecture around me when traveling, and some of my favorite lessons in musical composition have occurred by chance in my drawing practice over the years. While writing a string quartet to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Dumbarton Oaks, I returned to these essential ideas of space and proportion — to the challenges of trying to represent them on paper. The title, Plan & Elevation, refers to two standard ways of representing architecture — essentially an orthographic, or “bird’s eye,” perspective (“plan”), and a side view which features more ornamental detail (“elevation”). This binary is also a gentle metaphor for one’s path in any endeavor — often the actual journey and results are quite different (and perhaps more elevated) than the original plan.

I was fortunate to have been the inaugural music fellow at Dumbarton Oaks in 2014–15. Plan & Elevation examines different parts of the estate’s beautiful grounds and my personal experience in those particular spaces. Each movement is based on a simple ground bass line which supports a different musical concept or character. The Ellipse considers the notion of infinite repetition (I won’t deny a tiny Kierkegaard influence here). One can walk around and around the stone path, beneath the trimmed hornbeams, as I often did as a way to clear my mind while writing. The second movement, The Cutting Garden, is a fun fragmentation of various string quartets (primarily Ravel, Mozart K. 387, and my own Entr’acte, Valencia, and Punctum), referencing the variety of flowers grown there before they meet their inevitable end as cuttings for display. The Herbaceous Border is spare and strict at first, like the cold geometry of French formal gardens with their clear orthogonals (when viewed from the highest point), before building to the opposite of order: chaos. The fourth movement, The Orangery, evokes the slim, fractured shadows in that room as the light tries to peek through the leaves of the aging fig vine. We end with my favorite spot in the garden, The Beech Tree. It is strong, simple, ancient, elegant, and quiet; it needs no introduction.

Brahms called both of his cello sonatas “sonatas for piano with violoncello,” mindful of the 18th-century string sonata tradition in which the keyboard was the leader.  In Brahms’ own chamber music, the participants are always equal in importance; nevertheless, it is interesting that the composer followed an old custom and listed his own instrument, the piano, first.

Brahms began the E minor Sonata in 1862, during a vacation trip to the Rhineland.  He wrote three movements that summer–an opening Allegro, an Adagio and a minuet–but no finale.  Then he set the work aside for three years.  The fugal finale was written in Vienna in 1865, at which point Brahms excised the Adagio and published the work with a dedication to Josef Gänsbacher.  The latter was a jurist, cellist, and voice teacher who had been instrumental in bringing Brahms to Vienna by arranging for his appointment as director of the Singakademie.  Brahms held this position for only one season, but he remained in Vienna for the rest of his life.

The sonata begins with a brooding melody played by the cello in its lowest register.  There is a sudden shift to a mysterious world of dreams, followed by a robust outburst and finally a recapitulation of all the earlier themes. The second-movement minuet cultivates a certain archaic tone, including a form of cadence (in the so-called Phrygian mode) whose history reaches far back into the Renaissance.  The trio, or middle section, returns to Brahms’ present with a waltz tune that is sometimes left hanging in mid-phrase.

For the last movement, Brahms took his inspiration from the Contrapunctus XIII from Bach’s Art of the Fugue.  The fugue theme alternates with a cantabile (singing) melody played by the cello and accompanied by agitated piano figurations.  In the Più presto (“faster”) coda, the fugue theme undergoes further transformations that allow for an energetic and resolute ending.

© 2026 Peter Laki

I. Crystal liturgy (entire quartet)
II. Vocalise, for the Angel who announces the end of Time (entire quartet)
III. Abyss of the birds (clarinet)
IV. Interlude (violin, clarinet, cello)
V. Praise to the Eternity of Jesus (cello, piano)
VI. Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets (entire quartet)
VII. Tangle of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of Time (entire quartet)
VIII. Praise to the Immortality of Jesus (violin, piano)

The harrowing story of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time has been recounted in detail by Rebecca Rischin in a book published in 2003.  The composer had been drafted into the French army, captured by the Germans in June 1940, and sent to Stalag (Stammlager, camp for prisoners of war) VIII A in Görlitz, Germany, near today’s Polish border.

The conditions at the camp were rather harsh:  there was a chronic shortage of food and practically no heat in the dead of winter.  Yet cultural opportunities did exist:  there was a library, an orchestra, and the prisoners even published their own newspaper.

Messiaen, at 32 already an established composer, was allowed and even encouraged to write music.  His 50-minute, eight-movement Quatuor was performed at the camp on January 15, 1941, by Messiaen and three fellow prisoners who were also professional musicians.  The performance took place in a barrack filled to capacity by prisoners from different countries and different walks of life, united by a common fate.  They all listened with rapt attention and, according to eyewitness reports, were deeply moved by the experience.

(Messiaen and cellist Étienne Pasquier were repatriated soon after the performance.  For clarinetist Henri Akoka and violinist Jean Le Boulaire, the path to freedom was longer and more circuitous, but eventually, all four had long and productive careers at home.)

The “end of time” in the title refers both to the Apocalypse and to the end of measured time in the classical sense.  Unlike traditional Western rhythms, Messiaen’s rhythms are not based on doubling or halving the duration of a note, but rather on adding or subtracting small increments (eighth or sixteenth notes) to the notes, resulting in a peculiar “floating” sensation that expresses the state of being “outside” time both in a literal and a figurative sense.

In her discussion of the Quatuor, Rischin summarized the four pillars on which the composition rests: “Catholic doctrine, rhythm, sound-color, and birdsong.”  The composer’s profound Catholic faith informed virtually everything he wrote during his long career.  His explorations of rhythmic systems outside the European tradition, his search for new instrumental timbres, and his study of birdsong (which became more scientific after the war) were all placed in the service of expanding the expressive range of music in order to convey the cosmic dimension to which he gained access through his religiosity.

© 2026 Peter Laki