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
Kastreer

Language:  Afrikaans / English

Directed by:  Walter Strydom & Helet de Wet

Based on plays by:  P.G. du Plessis, Reza de Wet, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Bartho Smit and Andre P. Brink

Complied for the stage by the ensemble

Featuring:  3rd Year Drama Students

Venue:  Scaena Theatre

Dates & times:

2 April at 19:30

3 April at 19:30

4 April at 19:30

Prices:  R 40.00 for adults / R 30.00 for students or scholars / R 25.00 for pensioners or for groups of 10 or more

Bookings:   Computicket (0861 915 8000)

Press Release

“Kastreer” brings hope?

It was a warm summer night about three million years ago in Southern Africa when our earliest human ancestor first came down from the tree, by accident. Since then the southern tip of the African continent has seen ages of crazy regimes, maniacal people and suppressive wars. Today we face 20 years of democracy with an inherent pessimism in not only our government, but also each other. Where will our saviour come from?

In the words of some of South Africa's leading writers for the theatre, eight final year students of the UFS Department of Drama and Theatre Arts create a voice for themselves in the setting of a chaotic, yet realistic classroom. Unsentimental and without any excuses, the state of the South African psyche – especially that of the youth –is examined: An investigation into the South African’s ape-man mentality – here and abroad.

Pieter-Dirk Uys’sVan Aardes van Grootoor, P.G. du Plessis’sNag van Legio, André P. Brink’sDie Jogger, as well as Bartho Smit’sDie Keiser and Reza de Wet’sAfrican Gothic,form part of the rich theatrical history unearthed by this new generation in their sardonic search for solutions. Dear audience, prepare yourself to remember: A teacher is there to scold, part of our confused youth, is to comply.

With directors Walter Strydom and Helet the Wet (creators of VREK, winner of BesteKopskuifstuk duringVryfees 2013), you can be assured of not only cutting commentary, but also an evening of hilarious entertainment with glaring moments of truth.

Just maybe you will find an answer in the UFS Scaena Theatre as to why the monkey fell off his little twig in the first place.

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