Djadja & Dinaz Pour la Moula

Olivier Messiaen composed his eight-movement Quartet for the End of Time in 1940 while imprisoned in Germany. He drew his inspiration from the Apocalypse written by Saint John the Evangelist, one of the few works he was allowed to keep in the camp. Het Collectif explores this work, never forgetting that it was at the heart of this harsh winter of war, in a context of misfortune, confinement and deprivation, that Messiaen had an angel speak, promising paradise and the end of time… Stalag VIIIa , composed by Tristan Murail, whose title refers to Olivier Messiaen's place of detention in Görlitz in 1940, completes this programme.

“The work,” as Messiaen writes, “is directly inspired by the Revelation of St. John. Its musical language is essentially transcendental, spiritual, catholic. Certain modes, realizing a kind of tonal ubiquity in terms of harmony and melody, draw the listener into a sense of the eternity of space or time. Special rhythms, lying outside any sort of measure, contribute significantly toward the banishment of the concept of time.