In difficult times, in music there is hope.  With that thought in mind, Great Music in Irish Houses in is closing this particularly difficult year with a special New Year’s Eve event.   A concert, recorded in Dublin Castle’s Chapel Royal by some of Ireland’s leading musicians, will include movements from Messiaen’s evocative and inspiring Quartet for the End of Time performed alongside works for solo piano by German composers, Clara and Robert Schumann.   

First performed on a brutally cold January night in 1941, the work gave a measure of comfort to the composer's fellow prisoners at the Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp, in Görlitz, Germany during World War II.  A similar measure of “of unfailing light, of immutable hope” (Messiaen) is wished for the Festival’s audiences as we leave this challenging year and look to the next with hope.       

For further information and registration visit www.greatmusicinirishhouses.com

Great Music in Irish Houses Festival is funded by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
Presented in partnership with the Office of Public Works in association with Dublin Castle, the French Embassy in Ireland and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany Dublin

PROGRAMME

Olivier Messiaen

Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus from Quartet for the End of Time

William Butt, cello

Finghin Collins, piano

Clara Schumann

Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann Op 20

Fionnuala Moynihan

Olivier Messiaen

Abîme des oiseaux from Quartet for the End of Time

John Finucane, clarinet

Robert Schumann

Drei Fantasiestücke Op 111

Hugh Tinney, piano

Olivier Messiaen

Louange à l'immortalité de Jésus from Quartet for the End of Time

Katherine Hunka, violin

Finghin Collins, piano