Projects

SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

All the time while rowing we were facing the star­board side of the sin­king ves­sel. By that time, E & C decks were com­ple­te­ly sub­mer­ged, and the strains of music beca­me fain­ter, as though the instru­ments were fil­ling up with water…”

— Margaret Brown, recoun­ting her expe­ri­ence in life­boat No. 6

Those that were in the life­boats which were clo­se to the ves­sel say that the orches­tra play­ed till the very last and that the men went down into the sea sin­ging ‘Nearer My God to Thee’.”

— Caroline Bonnell, survivor

Disasters fasci­na­te us. They draw us in and con­front us with our own fra­gi­li­ty, remin­ding us of our mor­ta­li­ty. On the night of April 14–15, 1912, the RMS Titanic col­l­i­ded with an ice­berg. According to accounts, the ship’s band con­tin­ued to play until the very end. All the musi­ci­ans perished.

Perhaps the Titanic dis­as­ter is so cap­ti­vat­ing becau­se, as one account sug­gests, “the­re are not many sto­ries in which peo­p­le who are neither ill nor caught in a con­flict are sud­den­ly forced to con­tem­p­la­te their immi­nent death within just a few hours.” Immediately after the cata­stro­phe, the musi­ci­ans were hai­led as heroes, and to this day, legends sur­round them. Conflicting tes­ti­mo­nies from sur­vi­vors have led to ongo­ing spe­cu­la­ti­on about the last song they played.

SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD is a head­pho­ne con­cert that takes inspi­ra­ti­on from the endu­ring fasci­na­ti­on with the Titanic dis­as­ter and the myths sur­roun­ding its musi­ci­ans. The pie­ce expe­ri­ments with the for­mat of an immersi­ve pod­cast, explo­ring how dis­as­ters are pro­ces­sed musi­cal­ly and in popu­lar cul­tu­re. How is music used as a means of sur­vi­val and emo­tio­nal coping?

Blending ele­ments of a tra­di­tio­nal podcast—such as inter­views and discussions—with con­cert-like seg­ments, musi­cal ritu­als, and audi­ence inter­ac­tion, SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLDdel­ves into the role of music in dark and uncer­tain times. The per­for­mance is both inti­ma­te and sin­ce­re, yet infu­sed with humor, offe­ring a reflec­ti­ve explo­ra­ti­on of music’s signi­fi­can­ce in moments of crisis.

The pie­ce invi­tes us to con­sider what music we would turn to in moments of fear and uncertainty—and what that music means to us on a per­so­nal level. Through inter­ac­ti­ve moments, the head­pho­ne con­cert repea­ted­ly poses the ques­ti­on:
What con­nects us to the music that accom­pa­nies us near the end? What memo­ries are tied to it, what does it mean to us, and what does our sel­ec­tion reve­al about who we are?
To deepen this explo­ra­ti­on, the audience’s per­so­nal music choices are incor­po­ra­ted into the flow of the con­cert itself.

Sara Glojnaric, com­po­ser
©Mateja Vrčković

Sarah Maria Sun, sopra­no ©Rüdiger Schestag

Kuss@Kokon

Kuss@Kokon was an initia­ti­ve during the pan­de­mic. We got tog­e­ther as a string quar­tet with fri­ends and com­pa­n­ions who are par­ti­cu­lar­ly important to our deve­lo­p­ment, who have had a par­ti­cu­lar influence on us or who have sur­pri­sed us. We locked our­sel­ves away in stu­di­os with them for seve­ral days, and each of us brought our own art form to the table, and we then got to work together.

This means, for exam­p­le, that we pro­vi­ded a Mendelssohn string quar­tet move­ment, play­ed it and it was inter­rupt­ed by per­cus­sion, slam poet­ry or choreography/ dance.
We did­n’t illus­tra­te this move­ment, but met each other with various dis­rup­ti­ve fac­tors or the exact oppo­si­te of dis­rup­ti­on. That was so much fun and brought us to gre­at ide­as, of put­ting tog­e­ther dif­fe­rent modu­les that we could later com­bi­ne in con­certs or events such as fes­ti­vals, depen­ding on what was needed.

That’s what I call modu­les: They are con­cert parts, show parts that can run simul­ta­neous­ly, on dif­fe­rent levels such as inside/outside or con­se­cu­tively or even spread out in a room — depen­ding on the situation.

Instrumentation & works

Force and Freedom

 

A Beethoven pro­ject: for the 250th anni­ver­sa­ry of the com­po­ser’s birth, Nico and the Navigators and the Kuss Quartet ques­ti­on the aes­the­tic and poli­ti­cal cons­traints and free­doms in which Beethoven’s work was created.

The audi­ence alter­na­te­ly heard excerp­ts from Beethoven’s string quar­tets and adapt­a­ti­ons of the com­po­ser’s song frag­ments … In com­bi­na­ti­on with dance, songs and quo­ta­ti­ons, Beethoven’s string quar­tets appeared in a new light … The breath­ta­king move­ments of dancer Kawaguchi illus­tra­ted the ambi­va­lence of emo­ti­ons inher­ent in the music. In short inter­vals, des­pair, hope, light­ness and melan­cho­ly alter­na­ted …
The crow­ning fina­le of the per­for­mance, the “Great Fugue” Opus 133, in which Beethoven repea­ted­ly explo­des the firm­ly estab­lished sys­tem of the fugue, was also fit­ting. The audi­ence was enthu­si­a­stic.“
SEBASTIAN JUTISZ / RHEIN-NECKAR-ZEITUNG

More details and photos:

Force & Freedom

Commissioned Works

Music exists in time

this is important to us in both a lite­ral and uni­ver­sal sense.

How are string quar­tets writ­ten nowa­days, in the­se times whe­re any­thing goes…?
 
Johannes Brahms once wro­te, “You can­not ima­gi­ne how we feel, con­stant­ly hea­ring the steps of the giant Beethoven behind us.” And yet the oeu­vre has con­tin­ued to be rich and crea­ti­ve, espe­ci­al­ly for string quar­tet.
We are glad and also proud to be part of this ongo­ing jour­ney of creativity. 
Lera Auerbach, Oliver Schneller, Enno Poppe, Aribert Reimann, Manfred Trojahn, Bruno Mantovani, Iris ter Schiphorst and Francisco Coll are among­st the com­po­sers who­se works we have com­mis­sio­ned and pre­mie­red.
The adven­ture star­ted 1998 with Jörg Widmann’s first string quar­tet. As win­ners of the
Karl Klingler Competition, we recei­ved a spe­cial pri­ze for his work and per­for­med it for the first time in Berlin.

We curr­ent­ly recei­ve fun­ding from the sta­te of Lower Saxony in order to kind­le new initia­ti­ves for string quartet.

An exci­ting part of our quar­tet life!

Francisco Coll: Códices

Premiere: 31.10.2023, Stadtcasino Basel
Duration: 15 minutes

 

Commissioned for the Kuss Quartet by Kammermusik Basel, Konzerthaus Berlin, Wigmore Hall, Het Concertgebouw, and Musik 21 Niedersachsen

Mark Andre: Sieben Stücke für Streichquartett

Premiere: 02.08.2022, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker
Duration: 16 minutes

 

Iris ter Schiphorst: “Sei gutes Muts”

Premiere: 02.08.2021, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker
Duration: 12 minutes

with Maurice Steger, recorder

Bruno Mantovani: Beethoveniana

Premiere: 16.06.2019, Suntory Hall Tokyo
Duration: 11 minutes

Co-com­mis­sio­ned by: Suntory Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie de Paris, ProQuartet Paris, Musik21 Niedersachsen Hannover,
Concertgebouw Amsterdam & Wigmore Hall London

Aribert Reimann: “Die schö­nen Augen der Frühlingsnacht”

Sechs Lieder von Theodor Kirchner nach Gedichten von Heinrich Heine für Sopran und Streichquartett bear­bei­tet und ver­bun­den mit sie­ben Bagatellen für Streichquartett

Premiere: 14.12.2017, Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ Amsterdam 
Duration: 9 minu­tes
with Mojca Erdmann, soprano

Co-com­mis­sio­ned by the Frankfurt Bürgerstiftung in the Holzhausenschlösschen, finan­ced by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

Enno Poppe: Freizeit

Premiere: 30.11.2016, Hannover
Duration: 5 minutes