Project Description

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Bernd Alois Zimmermann at the Schott publishing house in Mainz, October 1954 © Schott Promotion

The project supported by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz, »Bernd Alois Zimmermann-Gesamtausgabe. Historical-critical edition of his works, writings and letters« is the first musicological edition project for music after 1945.

The subject of the project, developed in close cooperation with the Music Archive of the Berlin Academy of Arts and the musicologist responsible there for the composer's estate, is one of the most distinctive and globally performed German composer personalities of the 20th century. His works not only aroused the interest of researchers at an early stage, but also became established outside circles specialising in New Music. Zimmermann's work owes its impact to an artistic approach that both transcends genre boundaries and spans artistic genres, in which the central compositional and aesthetic challenges of the 20th century, which are also rooted in contemporary history, are concentrated as if in a burning glass. Zimmermann's compositional method, which has been technically extremely advanced and theoretically reflected since the 1950s, allowed the integration of the most diverse musical styles, genres, and quotations from the most varied spheres as well as a media opening. The project thus offers a currently unique opportunity to develop innovative philological methods in the field of music.

Zimmermann's oeuvre is presented together with the publisher Schott Music in a hybrid edition in which a digital, internet-based version is geared to the demands of an in-depth, source-oriented research interest. The print edition primarily provides information for musical practice.