Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time plus music by Debussy and Prokofiev

Festival Series II knits together music of Russia and France, spans two World Wars, and brings the complex dynamics of the first half of the 20th century to life more vividly than any written history. Debussy’s Sonata for flute, harp and viola is suffused with light and transparency, Prokofiev’s with steely melodic angles. In his epic Quartet for the End of Time, Olivier Messiaen transcends both with a completely new musical language. The work, born out of the most difficult circumstances imaginable, provides one of the most legendary stories in music history. Captured and interned in a German prisoner of war camp, Messiaen discovered musical colleagues among his fellow prisoners: a violinist, a clarinetist and a cellist. Himself a pianist, Messiaen created his quartet for this diverse combination, and it was given its world premiere on January 15, 1941, at Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp, in Görlitz, Germany, for an audience of inmates and guards alike. Despite the circumstances of its infancy, the Quartet for the End of Time stands as a work of exceeding beauty and deep humanity.

Artists: Sarah Brady, Winston Choi, Timothy Christie, Amy Ley, Christina McGann, Stephen Miahky, David Requiro, Kevin Schempf and MingHuan Xu