Collegium Vocale Gent

In 1943 Thomas Stearns Eliot published his volume of poetry entitled ‘The Four Quartets’ (German 1948: Die vier Quartette). The last of these is entitled ‘Little Gidding’*. The two stanzas of seven lines of verse each which Strawinsky set to music correspond to the second-last section and depict — darkly, as is typical of T. S. Eliot — that humankind may only atone for its errors and be redeemed ‘from fire by fire.’