Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ & a New Work by Harold Noben

Musicians playing cellos
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Event Description

Hellens extends a warm welcome to one of Belgium’s finest chamber groups, the Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble, for a candle-lit concert in the atmospheric Great Barn.

Quartet for the End of Time is a deeply moving work and becomes all the more so when one considers the history of its composition. It was composed in 1941 when Messiaen was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp (having been captured the previous year by the Germans) and it was performed in the camp to around 400 fellow prisoners. The line-up of clarinet, violin, cello and piano was determined by the availability of players and instruments. The musical and spiritual programme of this brilliant work reaches beyond the limits of human time. Messiaen was a deeply religious man, and his inspiration for writing it was a passage from the book of Revelation in the Bible. He sought to break with the conventions of musical time which characterised the music of his predecessors. In Quartet for the End of Time, irregular pulse and asymmetrical rhythm are vital elements the composer employs to convey his utopian vision.

The concert will also include a new work by the Belgian composer Harold Noben, which was commissioned by the Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble to be played alongside Messiaen’s unique composition.

Tickets: £18 for adults (students free) – available to book online or by phone from Hellens (01531 660504) or The Courtyard, Hereford (01432 340555) (please note that the concert takes place only at Hellens).

Friday 1 November 2024

7:30pm

Hellens

Location

Hellens

Much Marcle, HR8 2LY

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