NDR Chamber Music Concert: String Quartets

It takes courage for a composer to invite direct comparison with a repertoire classic. Siegfried Matthus – one of the foremost composers of East Germany before the fall of the wall – dared to do this in 1997 with his string quartet »Das Mädchen und der Tod«. It is a 20th century answer to Schubert’s »Der Tod und das Mädchen«. Here, death appears as a drug dealer offering beautiful dreams. »In the finale of my quartet, Schubert’s song floats in like an echo from another world,« says Matthus about his use of the Schubert original.