Quartet for the End of Time (Olivier Messiaen)

The story of this piece is that Messiaen composed it while imprisoned in a German POW camp during World War II. It’s written for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano because that’s what they had on hand in the camp. Lore aside, it’s a beautiful and haunting piece. Messiaen was a singular figure in 20th century music, and is perhaps my very favorite composer.