"My own aesthetic precepts derive from Brecht and Eisler. For me, music is more presentation than representation, a daily necessity rather than a leisure pursuit ..., " wrote Reiner Bredemeyer in 1986. Since 1961 he had directed the stage music at Berlin's Deutsches Theater. Theatrical precision and clarity, terseness and accuracy of gesture are fundamental qualities of his music. Bredemeyer's oeuvre consists of about 285 works: pieces for solo instrument, chamber music, orchestral works, lieder, song cycles and operas. This WERGO CD presents a small excerpt from this musical variety.
"Bagatellen für B." was written for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. "Duett/ll" is a playful essay on the opposition (duel) and cooperation (duet) of two oboists. Septett 80 was composed for the tenth anniversary of the founding of the ensemble Neue Musik "Hanns Eisler". "Solo 7" and "Schlagstück 1" come from a series of pieces written at the request of the commposer's instrumentalist friends. "Alle Neune - eine SCHÜTZenfestmusik" [Strike: Music for a Rifle Club Festival] for eight instumentalists celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of Heinrich Schütz. After immersing himself in the German poet Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827) and studying the strange, exclusively musical latter-day history of his cycle of poems "Die Winterreise", Bredemeyer came to the firm conclusion that these verses revealed many bitter points in common with the East Germany of 1984 and hence merited a contemporary setting.

The CD was awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics' Award!

Walter Olbertz, Josef Christof: piano / Staatskapelle Berlin / Otmar Suitner: conductor / Burkhardt Glaetzner, Ingo Goritzki: oboe / Gruppe Neue Musik 'Hanns Eisler' Leipzig / Friedrich Goldmann, Christian Münch: conductor / Werner Tast: flute / Gerd Schenker: percussion / Georg Christoph Biller: baritone / Sebastian Weigle, horn