ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that modern and postmodern variations of time's annulment revalue the significance of the force of the present with respect to history's temporalization. The distance separating modern and postmodern representations of the "end of time" from the ritual repetition of cosmogenic acts sets music's mimetic responses to time's inscrutable character against the mythico-religious experience of transcendence. Through converting tonal closure's paradigmatic function into a means of representing the end of time's contra-finality, Einstein on the Beach's "apocalyptic grand finale" evinces the crisis of closure by upending tonality's ontotheological underpinnings. Through transfixing the "time-honored closing" that vests dissonance's resolution with its normative force, the recurring "cadential" formula transforms the traditional sense of closure into an endless ending. The mix of Quatuor pour la fin du Temps' soteriological resonances with the innovative use of modes and rhythmic structures underscores the poetic and technical tours de force required when it comes to evoking a sense of eternity.
