Work

When Bernd Alois Zimmermann wrote the score of his opera in 1960 The soldiers submitted to the Cologne Opera Director, who quickly passed his judgment: “Unplayable”. A brutal verdict for a composer whose outsiderhood in musical life did not arise from an attitude – Zimmermann’s Works were much more clearly marked by war experiences, but also by a strictly Catholic family. Discouraged, the composer Works aside, but was repeatedly asked by stubborn friends to return to his soldiers and revise the opera if necessary.

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