Aus der Ferne III is a short piece written in 1991 for the 90th birthday of Alfred Schlee, the emblematic director of the Viennese publishing house Universal Edition. The cycle of five pieces Aus der Ferne thus unfolds over more than fifteen years: Aus der Ferne n° 1 and 2 for piano were written for Schlee's 80th and 85th birthdays (Játékok V), piece n° 4 for his 95th birthday (Játékok VII), while that the 5th and last piece is indicated in memoriam (for sttring quartet, unpublished). "From the distance" come the tenuous sounds of the violins and the viola; the cello should sound like a kettledrum. The title, a fairly common musical indication in romantic music ("wie aus der Ferne": "like from afar"), could also come from the beginning of this poem by Hölderlin: Wenn aus der Ferne, da wir geschieden sind, / Ich dir noch kennbar bin, die Vergangenheit / O du Teilhaber meiner Leiden! (If from afar, as we are divorced, / I am still recognizable to you, the past, / O you who share my sufferings!) (Grégoire Tosser)