Olivier Messiaen’s World War II composition to be performed and discussed Nov. 1 at CSB
October 19, 2015
Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" will be performed at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, in the Benedicta Arts Center's Escher Auditorium at the College of Saint Benedict.
The quartet will be comprised of three faculty members from the Department of Music at the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University - Amy Grinsteiner (piano), Lucia Magney (cello) and Bruce Thornton (clarinet) - and guest performer Svend Rønning (violin) from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington.
The concert will constitute the first half of the program, "Music as Exploration and Expression of the Divine." In the second half, CSB President Mary Dana Hinton and Minneapolis musician David Jordan Harris will offer initial responses to the concert and then lead an interfaith discussion on the more general theme of the program.
This program, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning in collaboration with the CSB/SJU departments of music and theology.
French composer Messiaen (1908-1992) wrote "Quartet for the End of Time" in 1941 while a prisoner at the Nazis' Stalag VIII-A camp during World War II. Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, called it "the most ethereally beautiful music of the 20th century." The combination of piano (Messiaen's instrument), violin, cello and clarinet reflects the players he had available in the camp.
Messiaen was a devout Catholic, and "Quartet for the End of Time" is a reflection of his faith in the midst of dreadful circumstances. Brian Campbell, chair of the CSB/SJU department of music, said that "perhaps no other composer has suggested the eternal as powerfully and beautifully as Messiaen."
According to Grinsteiner, "Quartet for the End of Time has become one of the iconic pieces of the 20th century, not only because of the circumstances under which it was written, but also because of the 20th century musical elements it employs." She also noted that "while on the surface it can be a bit abrasive at times, it is also peaceful, challenging, comforting, thought-provoking and mesmerizing."