Andre / Brass / Stockhausen

This album presents three contemporary works for double bass, interpreted by the renowned double bassist Frank Reinecke (b. 1960), who was a member of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 2024 and is in great demand as a soloist and chamber musician at international festivals. Working in close cooperation with well-known composers, Reinecke has premiered numerous works, including "Flucht" by Nikolaus Brass (2009) and "iv 18" by Mark Andre (2021), both of which can be heard here in recent recordings.

Composer Mark Andre, born in Paris in 1964, creates existential experiential spaces in his music that are characterized by subtle processes of change. At the heart of his thinking is the question of disappearance, which relates to all musical parameters. Especially in his chamber music, which is as refined as it is concentrated, the devout Protestant proves himself to be a sensitive explorer of sound.

Nikolaus Brass composed "Flucht" (Flight) in 2009—three movements for double bass solo—and views them as studies or etudes for the instrument. The first movement exposes various "gestures of the line," which are narrowed down to a single gesture, the glissando, in the third movement. In the middle is a movement in which the sounding of the instrument itself is expressed. The title "Flucht" can be interpreted musically in several dimensions.

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007) created the first version of "In Freundschaft" (In Friendship) in 1977 as a birthday gift for the clarinetist Suzanne Stephens; at the same time, he also produced a version for flute. In 1978, he revised the work and, on that occasion, wrote versions for oboe, trumpet, violin, and viola. Later, others followed for basset horn and almost all other orchestral instruments. A first version for cello, created in 1981, can also be played on the double bass. This live recording of the interpretation by Frank Reinecke was captured at a *musica viva* concert on November 6, 2020, in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz.