Quartet for the End of Time: Beauty in Darkness

Event Info

Whilst imprisoned in a German POW camp, Olivier Messiaen wrote a quartet for an unusual combination of instruments intended to be performed with three other musicians interned with him. The work was premiered at the camp in 1941 to an audience of prisoners and guards, and the composer later said ‘Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension.’
Faculty pianist Mei Yi Foo and violinist Bartosz Woroch are joined for this special performance by WNO’s principal cellist Rosie Biss & principal clarinettist Tom Verity, as part of a larger exploration of Messiaen’s quartet at the College in partnership with community groups affected by displacement or captivity.