The works compiled on this CD emphasize, in a richly varied manner, Bernd Alois Zimmerman's conception of music as the ultimate "art of time" in which different temporal layers permeate each other, thus eliminating historicity. Zimmerman served in World War II and was discharged for a chronic skin problem as a result of exposure to poison. Those experiences characterize his oeuvre.

It was in the 1960s, with the opera Die Soldaten and his Requiem für einen jungen Dichter, that Bernd Alois Zimmermann became known as one of the leading composers of the German post-war generation. These and other works from the period were examples of what the composer himself called musical pluralism – a highly individual collage-like technique involving quotations and superimposed metres, rhythms and time levels. The works on the present disc – Zimmermann’s complete production for solo piano - predate this, however. Composed over a period of only 17 years, they trace a journey which begins in a neo-classicism à la Hindemith – as radical an idiom as a young student at the Cologne University for Music could adopt during the Nazi regime. After serving in the war, Zimmermann worked as a freelance composer for the radio, theatre and television, and this has left a trace in both Extemporale and Capriccio, which weaves together seven traditional children’s songs. In Enchiridion II we begin to clearly hear the influence of Schoenbergian twelve-tone technique, which a few years later, in Konfigurationen, has blossomed into serialism, with its subtle gradations of dynamics, articulation and rhythm. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s death in 1970, the acclaimed Spanish pianist Eduardo Fernández makes his first appearance on BIS, showing us little known aspects of the composer.

REVIEW:

This music is played to perfection by the superb prize-winning young Spanish pianist Euyardo Fernanez (his fellow countryman with the same name is a famous guitarist). This is a delightful release in every way, an important addition to the catalog.

– Classical CD Review

With Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Monologues, the piano duo Vincent and Sophie Neeb place a rarely performed masterpiece at the centre of their debut recording. The composer describes his work, first performed in 1965, as "dialogues across the ages of dreamers, lovers, sufferers and praying people", which offers a journey through music history with sophisticated collages.
Following this inspiration, the programme is completed with a contrasting selection of compositions quoted there: Works by Bach and Debussy, creatively arranged for two pianos and percussion by Johannes Xaver Schachtner, and a Mozart arrangement by the piano duo Neeb enter into a unique dialogue via this inner context?

Together with percussionists Christian Benning and Patrick Stapleton, the piano duo Neeb explores surreal dream worlds - playfully light and enigmatically profound at the same time.

[The] new three-CD set titled “Zimmermann: Recomposed,” on the German Wergo label, is among the standout releases of 2022. -- The New York Times

Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918–1970) was one of the most distinctive composers in the musical avant-garde after the Second World War. While Karlheinz Stockhausen served as a kind of ‘generator’ in Cologne during the 1950s and 60s, inventing completely new sounds and techniques, Zimmermann was in many ways his opposite, a ‘transformer’ who redefined previously existing material by placing it in new contexts and collage-like structures, anticipating the ideas of the Postmodernists. Zimmermann created these new contexts on many levels.

Especially in his younger years, he arranged and orchestrated songs and piano pieces using brash and daring instrumental colors. These arrangements then found their way into his works that are now recognized as modern masterpieces: “Alagoana”, “Konzert”, “Sinfonie in einem Satz”, “Stille und Umkehr”, etc. His self-composed works employing numerous quotations as well as his arrangements ‘recomposing’ previously existing music are juxtaposed in the excellent recordings presented by WERGO in this collection. It contains more than three hours of music as well as an extensive booklet with a wealth of information and an interview with Heinz Holliger, the guiding spirit behind this production.

Holliger conducted all of the recordings and has worked for years to ensure that Zimmermann’s long-forgotten arrangements were rescued, published, performed, and recorded. The performances and recordings took place as part of the celebrations organized by the WDR in Cologne in honor of Zimmermann’s 100th birthday. This new release from WERGO presents a fresh perspective on the composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, whose tragic suicide shortly after the completion of “Stille und Umkehr” shocked the musical world. His fascinating instrumental effects and his embrace of popular and traditional music make his works feel much more at home in our contemporary world than they did in the cultural atmosphere of his time, with its faith with technology and progress.