Renowned writer and musicologist Stephen Johnson is joined by Trio Dali and clarinettist Paul Dean for a detailed exploration of Messiaen's wartime piece, Quartet for the End of Time.

"Time no longer” - words from the Biblical Book of Revelation - were the starting point for Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, composed while Messiaen was a prisoner in a German POW camp. The premiere, before an audience of guards, officers, and fellow-prisoners was one of the great events of Messiaen's life: 'Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension'. In a talk with illustrations by the performers, Stephen Johnson explores how Messiaen plays with time in the Quartet: the rhythmic innovations, and the ways the passage of time itself can seem to be speeded up, slowed down, or even suspended altogether.

PLEASE NOTE: The venue for this event is The Church of St John the Evangelist, 109 Iffley Road, Oxford