Zimmermann Bernd

The symphonies presented on this CD are all quite different in their compositional intentions and basic stylistic traits, but they do evidence certain parallels in their formal design (two works in one movement, two times three movements), their origins and in several other aspects.

Three keyfigures from ECM’s contemporary music roster – Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, and Thomas Demenga – team up for an exceptional recording of three works by German post-war composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Zimmermann, almost half a generation older than the serialists such as Boulez and Stockhausen, integrated state-of-the-art compositional methods in his writing while constantly following his own independent, highly expressive musical language.

The name of Bernd Alois Zimmermann is probably not a very familiar one to the experimental classical music listener. As this top-notch disc shows, Zimmermann's music was (and still is) strikingly original. It begins with his Cello Concerto in the form of a pas de trois, from the mid 1960s, a five-movement work that exploits to the fullest the solo cello as well as the unusual accompanying orchestra, which includes alto saxophone, contrabass tuba, electric guitar, prepared piano, glass harp, and even cimbalom.