Mendelssohn’s Op.13 and Alban Berg’s 'Lyric Suite': why did you choose this programme? 

Tetzlaff Quartett: The first, obvious reason is that we’ve been performing these two works for a long  time, with the greatest imaginable pleasure. They challenge us as musicians. In Berg’s case the challenge takes us to the farthest frontiers, and in Mendelssohn it is just as formidable. That would be the outer motive. And there are inner motives as well: each of these works has a connection with a hidden love story. I wouldn’t want to lay too much emphasis on this, however. It’s obviously interesting  to know the background, particularly in the case of the Lyric Suite. But we shouldn’t forget that Alban  Berg never revealed the work’s hidden programme to the public. In the score he encrypted what the  individual sections and passages meant to him, but you can enjoy the piece just as much without being aware of every detail. Of course we find it interesting that the piece is about intimate, sometimes terrible  things. From your own experience you can recognize every emotion evoked in every single page of the score.