Celebrating a 100th birthday and experiencing the world premiere of a string quartet – how does that fit together?

Klaus Fischer-Dieskau (1921–1994) would have turned 100 on January 2, 2021. A true Berliner, born and deceased in Zehlendorf, he founded the Hugo Distler Choir in 1953 and created a body of work spanning Opus 1 to Opus 110. This includes oratorios, organ music, symphonies, concertos, and choral works. Nine string quartets mark the milestones of his chamber music output, encompassing all phases of his artistic development, while never abandoning tonality. The contemporary context in which Fischer-Dieskau composed his quartets is unmistakable: influences such as Paul Hindemith, Béla Bartók, and Benjamin Britten can be felt. Yet the individuality of his musical language – for example, in his pointed rhythms and contrapuntally trained passages – is unmistakable and offers today’s quartet ensembles a veritable feast.

For this reason, the Albis Quartet from Magdeburg has taken up his quartets, giving the world premiere of Fischer-Dieskau’s 1st String Quartet in D minor, Op. 16 (1946) on the occasion of the celebratory concert on August 14, 2021, at the Kulturscheune Mutter Fourage in Berlin-Wannsee. Fischer-Dieskau brought the work with him as an unfinished manuscript from the war.

The program also featured other works by the composer: pieces for piano, a cappella choral works, a duo for violin and cello, and excerpts from sonatas for flute and cello (some of them world premieres).

Biographical notes, the composer’s own writings, and the presentation of the first recording of two quartets on CD by the Albis Quartet complete the portrait of this Zehlendorf artist.