Messiaen and Stravinsky

Saturday 26 October, 7:30pm

Stravinsky's Rite of Spring for piano duet, played by Anthony Zerpa-Falcon and Jong-Gyung Park

Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time played by Thomas Bowes (violin), Tim Lines (clarinet), Eleanor Alberga (piano) and Tim Gill (cello).  (Tim Gill plays an extract from the Messiaen in this BBC clip.)

As well as being one of the most ambitious programmes put together by Music at King Charles, this is a rare and exciting opportunity to hear two of the most famous and influential works of the last hundred years. While the first performance of Stravinsky's ballet famously started a riot at its first performance, in Paris, Messiaen recalled that at the first performance of the Quartet, "never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension". The circumstances of these two events could hardly have been more different, however. While Stravinsky's work was provocative for a wealthy Parisian audience at the Opera, Messiaen's work was first heard by his fellow prisoners at Stalag VIII-A, the Nazi concentration camp where it was composed.

Messian writes that the Quartet was inspired by words from the Book or Revelation: And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth .... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever ... that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished ....

Tickets: £15 (£12.50 in advance, from Hall's Bookshop or by emailing kcmconcerts@blueyonder.co.uk). No charge for under-18s.

The venue: King Charles the Martyr church is in the heart of the old town in Tunbridge Wells, post code TN1 1YX.