February 2, 2025 | 3:00PM
Mandel Hall
Robert Chen, violin
Qing Hou, violin
Lawrence Neuman, viola
John Sharp, cello
Stephen Williamson, clarinet
Umi Garrett, piano
Music in Times of Crisis
In a program investigating how artists respond to catastrophe, musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform Mozart’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major – a masterful work that features a wistful Larghetto movement as its crown jewel – and Messiaen’s haunting Quartet for the End of Time, written and premiered while the composer was in a German prisoner-of-war camp.
Scored for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, Messiaen’s "Quartet for the End of Time" incorporates a range of colorful sounds charged with spiritual energy, evoking images of singing birds, rainbows and angels.