Years
2019 2018
Quartet For The End Of Time
2018-10-25

Quartet For The End Of Time

By Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992)

25 October 2018

Odeion

19:30

“THE IDEA OF THE END OF TIME AS THE END OF PAST AND FUTURE AND THE BEGINNING OF ETERNITY”

Anmari van der Westhuizen and Samson Diamond (members of the renowned Odeion String Quartet), will join with the award-winning soloists Grethe Nöthling and Danrè Strydom to perform one of the 20th century’s most compelling chamber music works, Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. These musicians need no introduction to Bloemfontein audiences.

Composed while he was a prisoner of war, Messiaen's Quartet has continually wowed audiences since its creation. The oppressive conditions within which the work was conceived - set against the backdrop of wartime conditions in Nazi Germany - contribute to the work’s inner narrative. In this unsettling time of global political and social uncertainty, we aim to reframe this work from the past in order to contemplate the present. Music woven together with other art forms elicit and explain a range of emotions where words often fail.

A selection of striking WWII photos will be projected behind the musicians - reflecting the theme and history of the composition.

About the composition
Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 92)
Quatour pour le fin du temps (1940 - 41)

Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time was written in perhaps the most incongruous spot any great score has been composed in: an unheated barrack in Stalag VIII-A, a German prisoner-of-war camp, during the second winter of World War 2. Messiaen wrote this mystical quartet for the instruments available in the camp (clarinet, violin, cello, and piano) in a setting that is arguably among the least conducive for creative work.

The quartet is Messiaen's musical depiction of and rumination on Revelation 10:1-7, which the composer included as a heading to the score:

“I saw a mighty angel descending from heaven, clad in mist, having around his head a rainbow. His face was like the sun, his feet like pillars of fire. He placed his right foot on the sea, his left on the earth, and standing thus on the sea and the earth, he lifted his hand toward heaven and swore by Him who liveth forever and ever, saying: "There shall be time no longer, but at the day of the trumpet of the seventh angel the mystery of God shall be consummated."

ADMISSION

  • R120 (adults)
  • *R80 (pensioners)
  • *R70 (UFS staff)
  • *R50 (students, learners and block bookings of 10+)

Tickets available at Computicket or online at http://online.computicket.com/web/

*Please note that tickets for pensioners, students, learners and UFS staff can only be purchased at a Computicket outlet (Shoprite Checkers) or at the doors since a valid card or ID has to be presented to qualify for the above-mentioned discount.

ENQUIRIES
Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 401 2504)


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Brandenburg String Trio

Description: Brandenburg String Trio Tags: Brandenburg String Triowith Avigail Bushakevitz (violin), Ernst-Martin Schmidt (viola) & Andrea Casarrubios (cello)
18 May 2017
Odeion
19:30

 

The Brandenburg String Trio comprises SA violinist Avigail Bushakevitz, German violist Ernst-Martin Schmidt and Spanish cellist Andrea Casarrubios.  The trio members have performed in the world's greatest halls, such as Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Royal Albert Hall (London) at the BBC Proms, Carnegie Hall (New York) and the Philharmonie (Berlin).

 

No stranger to South African audiences, violinist Avigail Bushakevitz has performed as soloist with all the major orchestras in the country and has won multiple national and international competitions including first prizes at the UNISA National Strings Competition and the UNO Competition (Jerusalem). In 2016 Avigail was named South African Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year. Together with her brother, Ammiel, she has toured South Africa, and performed in New York and various European countries. In 2014 the duo was awarded first prize in the international Spanish competition Paper de Musica de Capellades. After completing her master’s degree at the Juilliard School (New York), Avigail continued her studies in Tel Aviv. In 2013 Avigail moved to Berlin taking up her current position as a first violinist in the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin

 

Violist Ernst-Martin Schmidt was born in East Berlin where he first studied violin at the CPE Bach specialist music school. He completed his bachelors and master’s degrees at the Musik Hochschule Hanns Eisler (Berlin). During the final two years of studies he commenced two years' playing in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2005 he joined the viola section of the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin.

 

Cellist Andrea Casarrubios studied at the Peabody Institute (Baltimore) and at the University of Southern California. After completing her master’s, she went on to work with Ensemble ACJW at Carnegie Hall (New York). She is also a composer with compositions premiered at illustrious venues such as Carnegie Hall. The New York Times praised her cello playing as having “traversed the palette of emotions” with “gorgeous tone and an edge-of-seat intensity”. She has won many awards and is a first prize winner of the American Fine Arts Festival International Concerto Competition 2012 and the SOR Solo String Concerto Competition 2009.

 

PROGRAMME:

Henry Purcell - Fantasia in D minor, Z. 743 (version for string trio)

Franz Schubert - String Trio in B flat major, D. 471 (unfinished)

Jean Françaix - String Trio (1933)

Gideon Klein - String Trio (1944)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  - String Trio (Divertimento) in E flat major, K.563

 

ADMISSION

R130 (adults)

*R90 (pensioners)

*R70 (UFS staff)

*R50 (students, learners and block bookings of 10+)

Tickets available at Computicket or online at http://online.computicket.com/web/

*Please note that tickets for pensioners, students, learners and UFS staff can only be purchased at a Computicket outlet (Shoprite Checkers) or at the doors since a valid card or ID has to be presented to qualify for the above mentioned discount.

 

ENQUIRIES     

Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 401 2504)

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