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
Free State Youth Orchestra conducted by Alexander Fokkens

Soloist:                Eljee du Plooy (organ)

Date:                    Thursday 24 April 2014

Venue:                 Odeion

Time:                    19:30

The Free State Youth Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Fokkens will give a free performance in the Odeion on Thursday 24 April. The FSYO compromises of students from the Odeion School of Music, students from the University of the Free State as well as learners of the highest level on all instruments from the High Schools in the Free State province. Many of the members this year are from the very successful Mangaung String Program under Peter Guy.

One of the main objectives are to create a seamless path in music education; working within their school programs, complimented by training and exposure to a high level youth orchestra that utilises the students at the OSM and UFS, leading them to continue their musical training at the Odeion School of Music and University of the Free State and ultimately giving them the potential to play in the Free State Symphony Orchestra (FSSO).

Alex Fokkens (Artistic director of the FSSO) is the principal conductor of the FYO. Weekly rehearsal are conducted by Anmari van der Westhuizen but there are also regular sectional rehearsals which are led by members of the Odeion String Quartet (for string players), Danré Strydom for the woodwinds and George Foster for the brass instruments.

The programme for 24 April will consist of the Symphony No. 104 “London” (Haydn), Three Cornered Hat Suite (De Falla) and the Symphony No. 1 “Organ Symphony” (Guilmant) with Eljee du Plooy as the organ soloist.

Eljee du Plooy received a bursary for post-graduate studies in 2012 in the final round of the SAKOV organ competition. In 2013 he won the organ category prize of the ATKV Musiq Competition and another bursary from SAKOV. He completed his MMus degree cum laude in 2013 and was awarded the Fanie Beetge Prize for best post-graduate student. Eljee is currently organist of the NG  Gemeente Hospitaalpark.

Admission: Free

Enquiries:

Ella Kotze (FSSO), tel. (051) 401-2342 (08:00 – 13:00)

www.fsso.org.za

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