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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UFS Department of Music presents: Wim Viljoen – Organ Recital

UFS Department of Music presents
Wim Viljoen – Organ Recital
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Odeion
19:30

Organ music lovers can look forward to an organ recital with one of SA’s most loved organists and winner of two international organ competitions (in Chartres and Nürnberg), Wim Viljoen.  He will give an exciting organ recital in the Odeion on 5 March 2009.

Wim is currently lecturing organ, harpsichord and organ method at the Department of Music, University of Pretoria where he also heads the Department since May 2008. He completed his graduate studies under prof. Stephan Zondagh (UP) followed by a M.Mus. degree (UCT) and D.Phil. (UP).  He won a SAMRO bursary and the UNISA Overseas Music Scholarship which led to a two year study in Paris under the renowned French organist Marie-Claire Alain.

He is active as concert organist in South Africa and abroad and has already given concerts in the USA, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Czechoslovakia.  He has taken part in international music festivals in Oundle (Britain) and Dax (France).

Wim has already released several CDs: “Sing tot eer van die Here”, “Recital”, “Arioso” (with violinist Zanta Hofmeyr), “O Divine Redeemer” (for Salon Music), “The Trumpet Shall Sound” (with Anton Delen), “Loof die Here” I, II, III en IV (for Fanie Smit), “Universiteitsoord”, and recently with three organists and instrumentalists in a CD titled “Heavenly Organ”. “Recital” was nominated for an award in the instrumental category of the FNB Music Awards (1998).

Wim has given several inaugural concerts for new / rebuilt organs e.g. the inauguration of the organ of the “Veremarksaal” (Port Elizabeth), the rebuilt organ of the cathedral in Litomerice (Czechoslovakia - 1999) and the “Groote Kerk” (Kaapstad - 2002).  He performed for the inauguration of the rebuilt organ of the “Groot Kerk” (Pretoria, built in 1904) with the UP Symphony Orchestra under the baton of prof. Eric Rycroft. 

In 2005 he gave four concerts in England, amongst others at the Westminster Abbey (Londen), and in 2006 he performed in the St. Paul’s Church during the international organ festival in Antwerpen (Belgium).  In 2007 Wim gave three recitals in the USA at the University of North Texas, Wichita State University and the St Anne’s Church in Rochester (New York).

PROGRAM:

J.S. Bach
“Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”, BWV 645
“Meine Seele erhebt den Hernn”, BWV 648
“Kommst du nun, Herr Jesu, vom Himmel herunter?”, BWV 650

J.S. Bach
Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543

F. Mendelssohn
Sonata  in F, Op. 65 no. 1

J.A. Guilain
From: Suite du 2me ton – “Tierce en taille”

L. Marchand
From: “3me Livre” – Dialogue

H. Temmingh
Three Organ Pieces (1995) – “Intrada, Cantilena, Toccata”

Olivier Messiaen
From: “La Nativité du Seigneur”: Nr. III – “Desseins eternal” (Eternal designs), Nr. IX – “Dieu parmi nous” (God with us)

ADMISSION:
R80 (adults)
R50 (pensioners, students and learners)
Tickets available at Computicket (at all Shoprite / Checkers shops, Mimosa Mall information desk) and at the doors.

ENQUIRIES:
Ninette Pretorius (tel. 051 - 401 2504)

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