In the 1980s, the German composer and broadcaster Hans Otte released a series of solo piano pieces called Das Buch der Klänge. Inspired by Buddhist thought and American Minimalism, Otte created a series of works that are lyrical, alternately contemplative and energetic, and possibly a little psychedelic. It was an overlooked masterpiece until pianist Conor Hanick, praised as one of his generation’s most inquisitive interpreters of music new and old, began playing it a few years ago, to great acclaim.

“This Book of Sounds rediscovers the listener as a partner of sound and silence, who in the quest for his world, wishes for once to be totally at one with sound.

‍‍It rediscovers the piano as an instrument of timbre and tuneful sound with all its possibilities of dynamics, colour and resonance.

‍The Book of Sounds rediscovers playing as the possibility of experiencing oneself in sound, of becoming at one in time and space with all the sounds around one.

‍It rediscovers a world of consonant experience which could only now be written because of a totally changed consciousness of sounds on earth.”

HANS OTTE: The Book of Sounds