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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
William Berger (baritone) & Melvyn Tan (piano)


William Berger (baritone) & Melvyn Tan (piano)
4 November 2010
Odeion
19:30

"...one of the best of our younger baritones."
Gramaphone Magazine

"…Tan's technical skill and sensibility produced a very special interpretation of the work, harmonious, and most coherent."
Kronenzeitung (Oliver Lang)

William Berger is an associate and graduate of the Royal Academy of Music. In concert William has performed with the CBSO, LPO, English Concert, Philharmonia Baroque (San Francisco), Hanover Band and Cape Town Philharmonic. Recitals include his Wigmore Hall debut and Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch (Oxford Lieder Festival) as well as two recordings: Songs of Spring and October Roses. Winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers in 1999, he was also awarded a Countess of Munster Trust Scholarship, an MBF grant and the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award. William’s opera roles include roles in La Boheme (Schaunard), Don Giovanni (Masetto), Madam Butterfly (Prince Yamadori), A Hand of Bridge (David), Barber of Seville (Fiorello), The Carmelites (Monsieur Javelinot), Salome (Second Nazarene), Billy Budd (Novice’s Friend), Cosi fan tutte (Guglielmo), Zauberflüte (Papageno), Le Nozze di Figaro (Count Almaviva), The Cunning Little Vixen (Harastra) and Orfeo (Shepherd).

Melvyn Tan has lived in London (UK) since leaving his native Singapore at an early age to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal College of Music. His teachers have included Nadia Boulanger, Marcel Ciampi and Vlado Perlemuter. He built a formidable international reputation during a long exploration of the precursors of the modern piano. Since returning to the modern piano in 1996, Melvyn has performed in most major festivals and concert halls throughout the world including many leading concert halls and with orchestras such as, amongst others, the London Philharmonic, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St Martin's in the Fields, Salzburg's Camerata and Mozarteum Orchestras, New World and Melbourne Symphonies and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Chamber music and Lieder hold an important place in Melvyn's repertoire. His chamber music and Lieder collaborations are numerous and include Steven Isserlis, Anne-Sophie von Otter and the Škampa Quartet. Melvyn have recently released two CDs with, among others, Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 12 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 2

Programme:
Mahler: Selection from Das Knaben Wunderhorn
Liszt/Schubert Transcriptions: piano solo by Melvyn Tan
Schumann: Liederkreis, Op.39
Dvorak: Gypsy Songs, Op. 55
Ravel: Don Quichotte a Dulcinee
Montsalvatge: Cinco Canciones Negras

Admission:
R120 (adults)
R80 (pensioners, students and learners)
Tickets available at Computicket (at all Shoprite / Checkers shops, Mimosa Mall information desk, Izami Florist) and at the doors.

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

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