Bernd Alois Zimmermann reflected on time – and the musicologist Jörn Peter Hiekel follows, reflecting on Zimmermann’s time.

Time is an important topic in music in the 20th and 21st centuries – and Bernd Alois Zimmermann is one of those composers whose name is particularly closely connected with this topic. Can one say that when a composer like him «shapes» time that he acts philosophically? What influences and ideas are conveyed? And what is specific about his approach? The lecture tries to answer questions like these, and outlines similar questions and on this basis connects a few fundamental concepts of contemporary music with philosophy and other art forms.

The musicologist Jörn Peter Hiekel is a specialist in contemporary music, has a professorship at the University of Music Dresden and teaches at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. Bärenreiter Verlag published his and Christian Utz’s highly acclaimed «Compendium of New Music» in 2016.