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)


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Die Wintersprokie (AFR)

Production: Die Wintersprokie (AFR)
Text: Anna Neethling-Pohl
Director: Gerben Kamper
Venue: Wynand Mouton Theatre
Date: 21 & 22 September 2009
Time: 19h30

Tickets:
R 30.00 Adults
R 25.00 Pensioners, scholars & students
R 25.00 Block bookings 10+
R 15.00 Club Theatron members

Tickets available at Computicket (Mimosa Mall & any Checkers) or at the door.

“Die Wintersprokie” (The Winter’s Tale) is a fantasy filled play by William Shakespeare and begins in Sicilia where Leontes (the King of Sicilia) is trying to convince his best friend Polixenes (the King of Bohemia) to extend his stay in Sicilia a little longer. Without any success Leontes turns to his wife, Hermione, for help. With great determination, Hermione succeeds in convincing Polixenes to stay without realising the consequences it entails by doing so. Leontes, in a moment of absolute absurdity, accuses Hermione and Polixenes of having an affair. His jealousy gets the better of him and thus starts plotting Polixenes’ death and throws Hermione in prison. While in prison Hermione gives birth to Leontes’s little baby girl, but Leontes, who is still overtaken by his madness, disowns her and orders Antigonus to abandon her in the desert. Leontes’s life gradually starts falling apart with one tragedy after another and soon starts realising what his jealousy has cost him. Will he be able to make amen’s or will the King of Sicilia fall from his throne?

This play is filled with lots of drama, accusations of a love affair, an abandoned baby daughter, a king’s descent into madness, three deaths, a marriage and finally a miracle. “Die Wintersprokie” (translated by the late veteran actress and theatre personality Anna Neethling-Pohl) is a wonderful play that is performed for the first time in Bloemfontein by the students of the Drama Department at the University of the Free State. Come and enjoy this traditional Shakespeare story that promises to keep young and old on the edge of their seats.
 

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