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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Free State Symphony Orchestra
 
 

Free State Symphony Orchestra
Thursday 3 March 2011
Odeion
19:30

Conductor: Arjan Tien
Soloist: Maria du Toit (clarinet)

Hendrik ANDRIESSEN Variations on a theme by Kuhnau
WEBER Clarinet Concerto No. 2
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7

Dutch conductor Arjan Tien has been working with South African orchestras since 1998 - the Kwa-Zulu Natal Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, th JPO and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. This is the first visit of the popular conductor to Bloemfontein. In 2000, at short notice, Arjan Tien was invited to conduct the Netherlands Youth Orchestra, and in 2001 he made a successful debut in the summer season of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. 2002 marked the beginning of a successful relationship with the Metropole Orchestra, recording with them the film music for the awarded Dutch film "Twin Sisters", which has also been released on CD. His second CD with the Metropole Orchestra, “Quand tu dors” with Wende Snijders, received an Edison Award, the oldest and most prestigious Dutch music award. His extensive symphonic and opera repertoire ranges from Baroque to Contemporary music.

He has conducted numerous television, radio, CD and DVD recordings and several world premieres, appearing in Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovenia, South Africa, Serbia Montenegro, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey, where he worked with orchestras such as the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra (Ankara), L'Orchestre Symphonique de Bienne, the KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (Durban), the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, the Metropole Orchestra, the Cape Town and Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Residentie Orchestra (The Hague), the Arnhem Philharmonic, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra.

Principal clarinettist of the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra in Cape Town, Maria du Toit is not only recognised as a distinguished orchestral musician, but indeed as one of South Africa’s finest solo instrumentalists. She has won numerous prizes in South African instrumental competitions, and in 2006 also the first prize of the international clarinet competition Jeunesses Musicales held in Bucharest, Romania.

Du Toit has appeared on various occasions as soloist with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, the Johannesburg Philharmonic and in 2002 with the FSSO. Active also as recitalist and chamber musician, her performance credits include the Stellenbosch International Chamber music Festival, Aardklop Arts Festival, Klein Karoo Klassiek, Darling Festival, Greyton Festival, Cape Town Concert Series, Stellenbosch Festival, International Classical Music Festival South Africa and UNISA Concert Series, among others.


Admission
R120
(adults) per concert
R80 (pensioners, students and learners) per concert

Tickets @ Computicket (Shoprite / Checkers, Mimosa Mall)
Book online at www.computicket.com  

Enquiries:
Ella Kotze
(FSSO), tel. 051 – 401 2342 (8:00 – 13:00)
www.fsso.org.za

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