“In my composition for soprano and string quartet The Garden of Paracelsus, I have used a text by the German poet Peter Huchel. Huchel (1903 – 1981) was a friend of Ernst Bloch. After WW II he worked in various functions at the East German Radio. In the first half of his poem he pictures the image of a garden once used for lively discussions and the presence of Theophrast, a different name for the medieval alchemist Paracelsus. In the second half he shows the decline.”

– Theo Verbey