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)


Back
DAVID HELBOCK – Solo Piano

Playing compositions from the recent ACT CD release Playing John Williams & Into the Mystic

12 March 2020

Odeion

19:30


“Great!” - Jazz thing (DE)
“Accomplished, melodic playing” - The London Times (GB)
“David Helbock is a musician to watch. [...] An impeccable pianist with a clear, crisp touch.” - Jazzwise (GB)
“Best of all, of course, is the pianism of David Helbock. He has a magical and mysterious relationship with the keyboard… a masterclass in careful control of nuance and ineffable beauty.” - Jazz da Gama (Canada)

Two rewards and the audience prize at the world biggest jazz-piano-solo competition of the Jazz Festival Montreux (CH), a lot of enthusiastic international reviews for his CDs, and tours all over the globe with his own projects - David Helbock has, without a doubt, already had a great international musical career.

The new program Playing John Williams is also the title of his fourth solo piano album after the releases Emotions (2003), Time (2007) and Purple (2012).

Since 2016 David Helbock is an exclusive artist with the well-known German jazz label ACT-Music with whom he has released two albums already – Into the Mystic (2016) and Tour d’horizon (2018). Playing John Williams, his third CD with ACT now, is a solo piano album, which was released end of August 2019.

On this album, David Helbock deals with the music of John Williams, one of the most famous film music composers of all time, who wrote nearly all the music to Steven Spielberg´s Blockbusters.

David Helbock connects seamlessly to two of his projects in the past. On the CD Purple (Traumton - 2012) the pianist dealt with compositions of the famous pop artist Prince and already back then transferred and reduced Pop Culture into his unique and creative solo piano language. On the CD Into the Mystic (ACT - 2016), David Helbock, who was awarded the most important prize of Austria – the Outstanding Artist Award in 2011, dealt with mystical stories from different mythologies together with his trio with bass ukulele and drums.

Already back then the trio touched on the music of John Williams and played an arrangement of the film music of Star Wars - a film full of cross-connections between different mythological elements.

Film music from blockbusters like Indiana Jones, Harry Potter to Jaws or Schindler´s List are reduced to their essence and shine like new in unique, creative and jazzy solo piano arrangements.

David Helbock will also perform some of his own original compositions from his album Into the Mystic - a programme that dives into a spiritual world. David was inspired to write compositions by stories of different cultures and their mythology. In this way, some very driving pieces, along with the spirit of our time but also many quiet, mystical moments, emerged.

PROGRAMME

  • Hedwig’s Theme Version 1 (John Williams)
  • E.T. (John Williams)
  • Hymn to the Fallen (John Williams)
  • Jaws (John Williams)
  • Schindler’s List (John Williams)
  • Escapades (John Williams)
  • Hedwig’s Theme Ver. 2 (John Williams)
  • Eros (David Helbock)
  • AM (David Helbock)
  • Spiritual Monk (David Helbock)
  • The Soul (David Helbock)
  • Duel of the Fates - Star Wars Episode 1 (John Williams)

ADMISSION

R160 (adults)
*R80 (pensioner s and UFS staff members)
*R60 (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.

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