Pekka Kuusisto & Friends: Quartet for the End of Time

A vision of eternity, as violinist Pekka Kuusisto and three friends explore the ecstatic musical universe of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.

In a wartime prison camp, Olivier Messiaen found himself with a clarinettist, a violinist, a battered piano and a cello with a broken string. From them, he crafted a vision of beauty on a cosmic scale. Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is one of those pieces that leaves no listener unmoved. This is music that goes beyond the conventional; that speaks with uncompromising honesty and piercing beauty to performers and listeners alike.

Pekka Kuusisto has always thrived on musical collaboration, a process which, he says ‘takes humility. It takes recognition that the whole thing is ultimately about music, not about your own ego’. Today, together with three kindred spirits, our charismatic Milton Court Artist-in-Residence puts that principle to the ultimate test.