Ensemble Chamarré: Quartet for the End of Time

The Ensemble Chamarré will present a rare performance of the powerful and moving ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ by Olivier Messiaen on Saturday, September 14th at 7 p.m.. Written and performed for the first time during WWII while Messiaen was a French prisoner of war, the piece was played by the composer and three fellow prisoners on inferior instruments before an audience of German officers and inmates in an unheated barrack on a painfully cold night in 1941.

The quartet embodies the extreme conditions of the camp and the emotions and struggles of the body and soul of the highly religious Messiaen. A guard at the Stalag where Messiaen was imprisoned recognized the composer’s genius and loved music so much that he broke many rules at the prison camp to supply Messiaen with materials and the privacy necessary to compose music. He also arranged for Messiaen’s release from the camp and his return to France, where the composer continued to live and work until his death in 1992.

The Ensemble Chamarré, featuring Catherine Hudgins on clarinet, Kate Wolfe on violin, William Rounds on cello, and Vitas J. Baksys on piano, has performed this extraordinary piece worldwide, earning praise from reviewers who cite their “mesmeric” and “brilliant” playing and their “amazing delicacy” and “musical wizardry.”