Trinity Cathedral Raising Funds To Repair Failed Organ
A special benefit performance of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time will take place at Trinity Cathedral, 100 W. Roosevelt St. in Phoenix, Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 p.m. Dr. Robert Spring, Professor of clarinet in the HIDA School of Music at Arizona State University, will perform Messiaen’s masterpiece with Chinese violinist, Dr. Aihua Zhang, cellist Dr. Wesley Skinner, and pianist Dr. Yi-Chun Kuo. All proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Music at Trinity program and the restoration of Trinity Cathedral’s Schantz organ. Tickets are $20 and are available at trinitymusicaz.org or at the door.
Messiaen composed Quartet for the End of Time while he was a prisoner of war in German captivity at Stalag 8-A and performed it there on January 15, 1941 with three fellow musician prisoners. The piece is inspired by a passage from the Book of Revelations. As Messiaen wrote in the preface to the score, “Its musical language is essentially transcendental, spiritual, catholic. Certain modes, realizing melodically and harmonically a kind of tonal ubiquity, draw the listener into a sense of the eternity of space or time.” This hour-long moving work concludes with a solo violin line literally ascending to heaven.
In December 2018 three of the six divisions of Trinity Cathedral’s Schantz organ failed, which led to the cancellations of organ concerts in the 2019 spring Music at Trinity season. The Cathedral has mounted a $55,000 fundraising campaign to cover the cost of installing a new control system and hosting a re-dedication ceremony.
