Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, born in 1962 in Mannheim (Germany), studied composition, music theory, piano, musicology, philosophy and sociology with Brian Ferneyhough, Klaus Huber and Jürgen Habermas, among others. Since 1984 he has won international prizes and awards, including the Gaudeamus Prize, Stuttgart Composition Prize, Ernst von Siemens Music Grant, Villa Massimo. He was appointed Professor of Composition at the Leipzig Academy of Music and Theater in 2005. 
 
"After Angelus Novus, I reached a fork in my path. I felt the need to work separately through the different expressive areas I had previously sought to combine, in the form of cycles specifically conceived for this purpose, in order to gather the necessary experience so that, one day, my musical language would once again be able to reach some form of (higher) synthesis. Among these is my Kurtág Cycle.

"Kurtág represents this sad, mourning, remembering, “nostalgic” consciousness in relation to past culture. The miniaturization and concentration of material is reminiscent of Webern, while his roots in folk culture call Janáček to mind. He writes – using conservative means – a music whose conservative nature is experienced as non-conservative; no other composer achieved this. He is a miracle in the midst of modernity."