Pipeworks Festival 2024 - Olivier Messiaen: Diptyque and Quartet for the End of Time

Mia Cooper, Violin
Martin Johnson, Cello
Fergal Caulfield, Piano and Organ
John Finucane, Clarinet

Olivier Messiaen, Diptyque: Essai sur la vie terrestre et l'éternité bienheureuse
Olivier Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps

This late night event in the atmospheric surroundings of Christ Church Cathedral features four of Ireland’s leading instrumentalists in a programme of works by French composer Olivier Messiaen. The Quartet for the End of Time, composed while Messiaen was a prisoner of war in 1941, is one of his most hauntingly beautiful and other-worldly compositions. It is preceded by the organ work Diptyque, whose second section prefigures the music of the quartet.