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
YURA LEE violin recital

with Tertia Visser Downie (piano)

8 November 2013

Odeion

19:30

Violinist/violist Yura Lee, first prize winner of 2013 ARD Competition in Germany, is enjoying a career that spans almost two decades, and takes her all over the world. Her musical integrity and her compelling artistry were praised by both the critic and some of the most respected artists of today.

At age twelve, Yura became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the "Performance Today" awards given by National Public Radio. She also received the Avery Fisher Career Grant - one of the most prestigious prizes given to young artists. She received numerous international prizes from competitions, including the first prize at the 2013 ARD Competition (Germany), first prize and the audience prize at the 2006 Leopold Mozart Competition (Germany), first prize at the 2010 UNISA International Competition (South Africa), first prize at the 2013 Yuri Bashmet International Competition (Russia), and top prizes in the Indianapolis (USA), Hannover (Germany), Kreisler (Austria) and Paganini (Italy) Competitions.

Yura studied at the Juilliard School (New York City), New England Conservatory (Boston), Salzburg Mozarteum (Austria), and at the Kronberg Academy (Germany). Her main teachers included Namyun Kim, Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai.  

As a soloist, she has appeared with many major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Symphonieorchester, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, and many others. She has performed with conductors Christophe Eschenbach, Lorin Maazel, Myung-Whun Chung, among many others.

Yura will be accompanied by pianist, Tertia Visser Downie.  Tertia is an accomplished South African pianist who studied under national and international piano masters John Antoniadis, and London-based Martino Tirimo after winning the prestigious Mabel Quick Scholarship.

She completed her honours degree in music at the University of Stellenbosch, as well as achieving the UNISA Performers’ and Teachers’ Licentiates, with distinction in both qualifications. Performing numerous solo recitals in South Africa and internationally, Tertia has also featured with various orchestras.

Tertia regularly gets invited as an official accompanist at national music competitions and regularly accompanies talented and award winning musicians at various events and concerts.  She was one of the official accompanists at the UNISA International String Competition in 2010, accompanying Yura.

During 2009, she joined renowned poet Philip de Vos on a national tour to bring masterpieces Pictures at an exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky and Kinderscenen by Schumann to stage, radio and television. With diverse talent and creativity, in 2008 Tertia took the leading female role in Pieter Dirk-Uys’ play, Appassionata, and performed the Beethoven Sonata with the same name.

Tertia has produced five CDs of her own as well as establishing and managing her Tots in Tune program designed to introduce classical music to young toddlers.  She also released a fourth CD with well-known cellist Marian Lewin at the end of 2009.

She is a part time lecturer in piano at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town.

Programme:

Beethoven: Sonata for violin and piano in D major, Op. 12 No. 1

Brahms: Sonata No. 3 for violin and piano in d minor, Op. 108

Kreisler: Praeludium & Allegro, Liebesleid, Liebesfreud

Tchaikovsky: Waltz-Scherzo

Admission: R130 (adults), R90 (pensioners), R50 (students and learners), R50 (group booking of 10+)

Tickets available at Computicket.

Enquiries: Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 401 2504)

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