Olivier Messiaen originally wrote his Quartet for the End of Time while interned in a Prisoner of War camp during WWII and it is inspired by the Book of Revelation quickly becoming a landmark work of the 20th century. Contemplative and searching, it contains profound and intense meditations alongside vigorous and defiant music all of it hinting at Messiaen’s complex harmonic and rhythmic methods and his obsession with birdsong.
Arthur Keegan’s work was written specially as a reflection on Messiaen’s quartet and commissioned by The Royal Philharmonic Soceity. Coalesce unfolds imagining the emergence of life from chaos and its development to complex life and humans. It closes gently, with a prayer for humanity’s future.
Programme:
Arthur Keegan Coalesce: Quartet for the Start of Life
Olivier Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time
