Quartet cellist links Germany’s far-right to Putin’s Kremlin

If the name Matthias Moosdorf does not instantly ring a bell, it may be because he hasn’t played much music of late.

Moosdorf, 59, was fired by the Leipzig String Quartet in 2019 over his provocative online messaging in support of Germany’s AfD rightwing party. Before that he was occasional front-man for the quartet in its long-running legal difficulties.

Today, Moosdorf is foreign affairs spokesman for the AfD in the German Bundestag.

He has just accepted an honorary professorship at the Gnessin Institute in Moscow, where such appointments require Kremlin approval. He gave an inaugural lecture there last month. ‘Music knows no ideological boundaries,’ saysMoosdorf.

Few current cello careers are quite so colourful.

Except, maybe, Sergei Roldugin.