Among the German avant-garde composers after the Second World War, Bernd Alois Zimmermann was the great outsider. Despite all ruthless innovation, his creative ethos was characteristic of the German tradition in the dimensions of idealistic and philosophical complexity and bitter and disjointed tragedy.

Zimmermann was initially strongly influenced by the polyphonic currents of neo-Classicism and Expressionism in the wake of Hindemith, Jarnach and Stravinsky, but his own voluminous and daring characteristics quickly crystallized. It was not to be an easy position for him over the next two decades, as he felt himself to be the eldest among the young composers and at best saw companions in his elder colleagues Luigi Dallapiccola and Karl Amadeus Hartmann.

It was only the premiere of his opera 'Die Soldaten' that brought him broad and undisputed recognition, and 'Die Soldaten' was soon considered the most important German opera since Alban Berg.

As a start to the new CD edition "modern times", the conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens and his orchestra, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, present some of the least known orchestral pieces by this composer.