Today we have a guest recommendation from Stephan Kunze, an independent music and culture writer based in Germany. His weekly newsletter Zen Sounds covers experimental music from many genres: jazz, electronic, ambient, pop, rock, hip-hop, neoclassical, and avant-garde music. Occasionally, it might dip into film, literature, fine arts, philosophical and spiritual topics.

Today we’re listening to Samuel Reinhard, a Swiss composer based in New York, whose music falls in the contemporary classical genre. Last year, I got obsessed with Repetitions, a four-movement work for three pianos that play notated motifs at their own pace, so that they overlap in specific intervals without actually being in sync. What I love most about Reinhard’s way of composing is his elegant and extensive use of negative space (or “ma”, in Japanese philosophy). The long pauses between the sustained piano notes induce calm and a space to think, as Brian Eno famously said. I find Reinhard’s personality quite interesting as well – a rather reclusive nature, I’ve managed to conduct an interview with him over email earlier this year (paywall removed). Recently he's published another beautifully slow composition, Two Pianos and String Trio, which has an improvisational aspect to it, as each of the piano and string players get assigned a pool of notes to freely choose from. It was recorded in a former church in Copenhagen, and through its reverberation and ambience sounds, the performance space becomes part of the piece.

Repetitions - Samuel Reinhard (40m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Two Pianos and String Trio - Samuel Reinhard (40m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal

Have a great rest of your week.