Light at the End of the Tunnel. Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for the Postcards from Composers series in 2020. Written during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, the solo viola reacts to the journey through life during the pandemic with despair and agitation, seeking the "light at the end of the tunnel" - a quiet long-held high E natural. Eventually the agitation calms as the E natural resolves to A major, looking to a future of hope.

With the publication of the masterpieces K. 593 and 614 all of Mozart’s string quintets are now available in Henle Urtext. Our edition corrects several widespread misreadings of the musical text and also draws on the firstprintings as important sources. The first printing of the Finale from the Quintet in D major K. 593 diverges greatly from the autograph. The editors consider it probable that the print version was authorized which is the reasonwhy we have published both versions of the movement (to enable a better comparison it is given as an ossia version above the musical text). In the Preface and Comments the editors shed light on the source situation to these twoimmortal works written in the last two years of Mozart’s life.

String Quartet No.2 was composed by Hans Abrahamsen in 1981. Programme note: Hans Abrahamsens's second string quartet was commissioned by the Lerchenborg music-week of 1981 during which it was first performed by the Gaudeamus Quartet. In Hans Abrahamsen's second quartet it is the continuous alternation of soberness and drama that first catches the listner's ears: the lyrical/gestural tradition as we know it from Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg pitched - not against - but around the 'sober barbarism' which is characteristic of rhytmic neo-classicism. Both the first and the last movement of th is quartet are emotional at manylevels: sad - and still seething with life and always unpredictable in their development it is night twilight and white-hot light. Sparkling diamonds set off by scarlett velvet. The two middle movements link the contrasts without cushioning: the second movement a gruelling stripped rhythmical drill followed by a hushed far-off dance in triple meter which shifts and hesitates all the time though. There is an ambience of the classics glimpsed through many veils. The second quartet is music which is fraught with danger in its ambiguous relation to tradition: the past emerges as a most relevant and living ghost. The Beauty and the Beast as musical drama.