“‘Closing Chorus’, this evening in a 123-minute recording by the Mainz theatre department on ZDF, links up in dramatic terms with the “Trilogy of Reunion” and reflects the decline of East German communism as exemplified by individual characters who attempt to come to terms with this new situation. Strauß displays in reflex style the rituals of approach and refusal, the way people search for each other only to then miss. The title refers not only to an end-game but also to the Hymn of Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony which, in the days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was adopted as background music for the national outpouring of delight.” (Frankfurter Rundschau