Contemporary Music


Ever since its foundation, the House of Bärenreiter has taken a special interest in publishing contemporary music and promoting new composers. In its early years, the main focus fell on composers committed to new sacred works in the spirit of the German youth movement ("Singbewegung"), with its associated rediscovery of early music and historical organ performance; the most prominent of these composers was Hugo Distler. In the Fifties, however, the spectrum broadened to encompass the so-called "avantgarde".

Since then, Bärenreiter's catalogue has covered all the standard genres and scorings of contemporary music, from solo instrumental pieces to opera.

Today the Bärenreiter catalogue features such internationally prominent twentieth-century composers as Jean Barraqué, Günter Bialas, Beat Furrer, Peter Michael Hamel, Klaus Huber, Nicolaus A. Huber, Leos Janácek, Rudolf Kelterborn,, Giselher Klebe, Ernst Krenek, Jorge E. López, Frank Martin, Bohuslav Martinu, Giacinto Scelsi, Thomas Daniel Schlee, Othmar Schoeck, Ulrich Stranz, Manfred Trojahn, Heinz Winbeck and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.

Moreover, the House of Bärenreiter regards it as a crucial obligation to look after promising young composers and to market their music on a professional basis. Here the actual publication - the computer typesetting, printing and marketing of each piece - only forms part of our efforts. Among these young Bärenreiter composers are Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Vadim Karassikov, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini, Charlotte Seither, Miroslav Srnka, Philipp Maintz and especially Matthias Pintscher, some of the best-known and most striking figures of their generation.


Performances (Selection, at takte-online.de)

New Publications



More Information: In preparation:
Jean Barraqué
Beat Furrer
L'ubica Cekovská
Hugo Distler
Vadim Karassikov
Rudolf Kelterborn
Jorge E. López
Philipp Maintz
Matthias Pintscher
Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini
Thomas Daniel Schlee
Charlotte Seither
Miroslav Srnka
Ulrich Stranz
Manfred Trojahn
Günter Bialas
Peter Michael Hamel
Giselher Klebe
Bohuslav Martinu
Gerhard Wimberger
Heinz Winbeck




Take a look at the pdf-catalogue with Contemporary Chamber Music

for download

or online.