Is there - or was there – an original “East German music”? Steffen Schleiermacher, who grew up in Halle an der Saale in the former German Democratic Republic, has set out in quest of its traces and selected his traveling companions. His teachers from Leipzig and his (East) Berlin study years such as Siegfried Thiele, Friedrich Goldmann, and Friedrich Schenker are among them as well as former and current friends of his and inspiring artistic personalities such as Reiner Bredemeyer, Hermann Keller, Nikolaus Richter de Vroe, Knut Müller, and Wolfgang Heisig. The result is a surprisingly rich and varied program thoroughly dispelling a number of mistaken notions about the East German music scene.

Wolfgang Heisig has gained renown above all for his advocacy of mechanical musical instruments and the music of Conlon Nancarrow. His piano pieces are of amazing simplicity: “Schade” consists merely of the tones indicated in the title (Es-C-H-A-D-E). And “Leuchtreklame” plays with the famous Leipzig “Löffelfamilie” pictured on a neon sign never in 100% working order – which of course is not a political statement