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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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Fun & games for violin and piano

FUN & GAMES for violin and piano with Piet Koornhof & Tinus Botha

26 October 2017

Odeion

19:30

Two celebrated South African musicians – violinist Piet Koornhof and pianist Tinus Botha – have put together a programme of exciting and exhilarating works for violin and piano. From there the name “Fun & Games”. Concertgoers will be treated to a feast of music from Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” to Saint-Saëns’ “Dance Macabre” and De Valla’s “Ritual Fire Dance”. Piet and Tinus are both top notch lecturers at the NWU School of Music in Potchefstroom.

A comical reflection on the artists!

Piet Koornhof plays the violin and tries mostly in vain to teach others at North-West University in Potchefstroom. He has been doing it for so long that his left shoulder is higher than the other one and his face carries a permanent grimace. He was fortunate to study with one of the greatest violin teachers in history, Professor Dorothy DeLay, at the Juilliard School in New York (USA), but as a confused teenager he learned much less than he should have. His great musical love is for chamber music, which he often plays with colleagues locally, and sometimes with friends overseas. He is pathologically obsessed with gliding and reading, even though he hardly ever has time for it. He greatly enjoys playing squash with his sons, mostly on the losing side. Oh, yes, he has a DMus degree in musical performance from the institution where he serves as associate professor.

Tinus plays the piano, sometimes rather nicely, if he has to say so himself. He is one of Piet’s dearest colleagues at the North-West University, where he endeavors towards all sorts of noble pursuits. Tinus studied in America (in spite of horrifying exchange rates), where he tried the patience of Jerome Lowenthal, José Feghali, and Harold Martina. After his triumphant return to the Republic, he perpetrated a range of concerts, and completed a DMus degree at the University of Pretoria with superhuman effort. Tinus’ hobbies include gardening, even though his lawn is not currently the lush feast for the eye that he had envisioned. He is planning a duo concert with his little yorkie, Giepie, who enjoys singing with piano accompaniment. He is a rabid proponent of the Oxford comma, and a stalwart in the struggle against abuse of the apostrophe.

ADMISSION

  • R110 (adults)
  • *R70 (pensioners)
  • *R60 (UFS staff)
  • *R40 (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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