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
Nettie Immelman Memorial Concert

with Ruth Goveia (piano) and the Odeion String Quartet

8 May 2014

Odeion

19:30

Legendary piano teacher, Nettie Immelman, passed away in 2011 and the Odeion School of Music presented the first memorial concert in her honour during 2012.  Jeanne-Minette Cilliers, celebrated pianist and former pupil of Immelman, was the obvious choice of a celebrated pianist to be invited to perform in this first concert.  Pianist Nicol Viljoen performed in the second memorial concert.

With the third memorial concert the newly appointed piano lecturer at the OSM, Prof Ruth Goveia and the Odeion String Quartet will perform.  Ruth will perform solo piano works by Debussy and Chopin in the first half of the programme, followed by the Schumann Piano Quintet, Op. 44 together with the Odeion String Quartet in the second half.    

Ruth Goveia obtained her BMus (Ed) degree from the University of the Free State and her DMus from the Jacobs Music School at the University of Indiana (USA).  Her piano teachers and mentors include distinguished pianists like Edmund Battersby, Géla Siki, Frank Weinstock and Nils Kayser.  Ruth served as adjunct professor of piano at the Albion College (Michigan) and visiting professor at Indiana University.  She also held a senior lector position for several years at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and at the Department of Music at the University of Pretoria.  She has performed as soloist with most SA orchestras as well as at American universities.

The OSQ (with members Samson Diamond, Sharon de Kock, Jeanne-Louise Moolman and Anmari van der Westhuizen) is a flagship of the UFS and symbolizes the university’s commitment to the arts.  The quartet was established in 1991 as a permanent full-time resident string quartet.  The quartet performs regularly to critical acclaim in all the major music centres in South Africa as well as in Zimbabwe and Zambia.  The OSQ was recently nominated for the Kanna award for Best Classical Music Performance at the 2014 Absa KKNK. In November 2013 they recorded a CD which will be released in May 2014.

Programme:

Solo piano works by Debussy and Chopin

Schumann Piano Quintet, Op. 44

Admission:

R110 (adults), R70 (pensioners), R60 (UFS staff), R40 (students and learners)

R40 (group bookings of 10+)

Tickets available at Computicket.

Enquiries:       

Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 401 2504)

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