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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)


Back
Clarinet & Piano: OPUS ZA

with the Nöthling Strydom Duo - Danrè Strydom (clarinet) & Grethe Nöthling (piano) and David Griessel (visual artist David Griessel displaying the sketching process inspired by each composition performed)

30 August 2018
Odeion
19:30

Award-winning South African musicians, clarinetist Danrè Strydom and pianist Grethe Nöthling, started an exciting collaboration in 2016. Since recently returning to South Africa after several years abroad, these two musicians aim to provide global audiences with exhilarating performances of not only well-known and loved repertoire, but also of more unknown and interesting repertoire. The Duo performed at 2017 South African festivals and various national concert series. Both musicians (as part of Trio Intolerance) won the Free State Artists of the Year award at the Free State Arts Festival (2017). During 2018 the Duo was invited to perform at the International Clarinet Festival in Belgium. While in Europe, they recorded the first part of their CD of newly composed as well as underplayed South African compositions for clarinet and piano.

In this concert, titled Clarinet & Piano: Opus ZA, the Duo will be performing some of the lovely but demanding South African compositions which will appear on the CD. The selection includes works by well-established composers such as Clare Loveday, Noel Stockton, Hendrik Hofmeyr and Peter Klatzow, to mention a few. All the works are relatively short compositions, so the programme will include nine works in total. To emphasise the character of each of these compositions, South African visual artist, David Griessel, will do nine sketches that will be displayed on a screen behind the musicians. These videos made by Bloemfontein videographer, Zita, will include the complete drawing process, and the audience can follow each line and brush stroke during the performance of the music. After the concert, these original sketches, titled the same as the compositions, will be sold to interested audience members. These will be unique sketches, and the audience can look forward to this extraordinary collaboration of two musicians with a visual artist.

David Griessel graduated with a bachelor in Fine Arts from the University of the Free State. Earlier in 2018, he did an art residency, book launch and exhibition in Caylus and Saint Antonin (France). He currently works as an artist/writer/illustrator in Cape Town and is the art editor of the literary journal, New Contrast. He is part of the artist’s collective, Studio Clowder.

PROGRAMME:

  • Hendrik Hofmeyr: Notturno
  • Clare Loveday: Heatwave
  • Noel Stockton: Three Pieces
  • Peter Klatzow: Moments of Night
  • StephansGrove: Spieeltjie aan die wand
  • Isak Roux: Kleine Chronik
  • Surendran Reddy: Game I for Lîla
  • Alexander Johnson: Jazz Sonatine

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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