Bernd Alois Zimmermann Complete Edition

The subject of this project is one of the most striking German composer personalities of the 20th century. The works of Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970) not only aroused the interest of researchers at an early stage, but have also established themselves in the repertoire worldwide outside circles specializing in New Music. His opera Die Soldaten alone has had around 30 new productions in 14 countries on three continents since its premiere, four of them in the last two years alone, despite immense technical difficulties. Zimmermann's oeuvre owes its impact to an artistic approach that transcends genre boundaries and artistic disciplines, in which the central compositional and aesthetic challenges of the 20th century, which are also rooted in contemporary history, are bundled together as if in a burning glass. Zimmermann's technically extremely advanced and theoretically reflected compositional style since the 1950s allowed the integration of the most diverse musical styles, genres and quotations from the most diverse spheres as well as the opening up to non-original musical media. A strong interconnection between the individual works integrates the individual compositions into the overall complex of the oeuvre. The Bernd Alois Zimmermann Complete Edition is planned as a hybrid edition in order to make this visible for scholarly purposes and at the same time ensure that the edition can be used for performances: A digital, internet-based Edirom edition will meet the demands of in-depth, particularly source-oriented research interest and will be geared towards the genesis of the complete works. A conventional printed edition published in volumes (in the case of electronic compositions, tapes, etc., partly with sound carriers) will include all the information that the critical edition provides for musical practice.