...Abschiede... (…farewells…) for violin, viola and violoncello, dedicated to Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn, was composed during the month of January 1993 in Chicago. It was commissioned by the Italian composer Stefano Scodanibbio for the Ensemble Recherche. The viola part, the heart of the composition, may as well be presented solo, under the title Schmerzprobe. ...Abschiede... belongs to a series of interrelated studies for the opera CassandraComplex and reflects – as do the other works – certain aspects of the story Kassandra by Christa Wolf. It refers to the following passage: “... Myrine, seeing me smile as I talked of Aeneas, shrieked: Unteachable, that’s what I was. I laid my hand on the nape of her neck until she was still, and from the wall beside the Scaean Gate both of us watched the sun sink into the sea. We knew it was the last time we would stand together this way. I am testing for pain. I am probing my memory the way a doctor probes a limb to see whether it has atrophied. Perhaps pain dies before we die. That information, if true, must be passed on; but to whom? Of those here who speak my language, there is none who will not die with me. I make the pain test and think about the goodbyes. Each one was different. In the end we identified each other by whether or not we knew this was goodbye. Sometimes we just raised our hands lightly. Sometimes we embraced. Aeneas and I did not touch each other anymore. It seems to me that his eyes, whose color I could not fathom, were above me for an infinite time.”

Gerhard Stäbler