Camerata Pacifica's November Performances to Feature Prokofiev and Messiaen

Camerata Pacifica continues its 28th season with a November program that features two breathtaking, mid-twentieth century masterpieces: Prokofiev's Violin Sonata No. 1 in F Minor Op. 80, and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time (Quatuor pour la fin du temps).

Prokofiev's Sonata is at times mysterious, edgy, dynamic, beautiful and frenetic. It will demand a display of virtuosity from Giora Schmidt (violin) and Gilles Vonsattel (piano), who makes his Camerata Pacifica debut. On this program, Prokofiev's Sonata is presented to bring heart and mind into focus, to set the tone for one of the greatest works of all time: Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.

Messiaen was captured during World War II and taken to Stalag VIII-A, a prisoner-of-war camp at Görlitz in Silesia. In the dead of winter of 1940-41, he wrote the quartet for the instruments on hand among the camp's inmates: violin, cello, clarinet, and (himself playing) piano. The first performance took place before a large audience of prisoners. It was his most ambitious work so far - a sequence of eight movements that referenced this Biblical passage from Revelations:

"I saw a mighty angel descending from heaven, clad in mist, having around his head a rainbow. His face was like the sun, his feet like pillars of fire. He placed his right foot on the sea, his left on the earth,and standing thus on the sea and the earth he lifted his hand toward heaven and swore by Him who liveth for ever and ever, saying: "There shall be time no longer, but at the day of the trumpet of the seventh angel the mystery of God shall be consummated."

Despite the circumstances of its origin and its inspiration from the words of the Angel of the Apocalypse, this is not an apocalyptic, dystopian commentary. Quite the opposite, from the pen of a devout Roman Catholic, it is a transcendental meditation on the cessation of time. Beyond any one denomination or belief system, this is a work that has powerfully affected and uplifted audiences since its premiere in sub-zero temperatures in a 2nd World War prison camp.

Performances take place Sunday, November 12 at 3 p.m. at the Martin V. and Martha K. Smith Pavilion at the Museum of Ventura County in Ventura; Tuesday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m. at The Huntington Library in San Marino; Thursday, November 16 at 8 p.m. at Colburn School's Zipper Hall in Los Angeles; and Friday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m. at Hahn Hall in Santa Barbara.

Subscriptions ($125 - $403) and single tickets ($50 - $56) can be ordered online at http://cameratapacifica.org/season-tickets/order-tickets or by calling 805-884-8410.

To post a comment, you must register and login.