No sooner has a note been played than it is already a thing of the past. Perhaps that is precisely why we have been publishing so many books about music since 1980—not to preserve it, but to explore it: its ideas, its conflicts, its stories, and the questions it leaves behind. In our first half-year preview of the year, we present the lineup with which Wolke Verlag is kicking off this year—now available for download as a PDF and as a free print insert with every order placed in our online store.
The 1/2026 program does not bring together books focused on a particular style, era, or institution. Instead, they revolve around common questions: How is music theater changing beyond the opera house? What role does composition play in a globally interconnected world? How do we rewrite music history? And how can we talk about music without reducing it to concepts?
A key focus of this half-year is the question of what happens to musical theater when it leaves the institution of the opera house. The anthology *Opera where it doesn’t exist. Periphery as New Territory* brings together over twenty international contributions on opera as an open practice—in museums, public spaces, and digital environments. This question is further explored in terms of sound and space in Margarethe Maierhofer-Lischka’s study “I Hear the Stones, See the Sound, and Read the Water” on contemporary auditory music theater from Luigi Nono to Chaya Czernowin (read more about it here in a blog post by the author). This concept can be experienced live from March 21 to 29, 2026, at MaerzMusik × Wolke Library at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele: a temporary space where books, conversations, readings, and sound objects come together.
To mark the 100th anniversary of Hans Werner Henze’s birth, we are dedicating three books to the composer. Following his book on Schoenberg, Christoph Becher continues with *The Henze Challenge* and guides readers through Henze’s oeuvre in twelve chapters—complete with QR codes linking to music samples. *The New Wild Melody*, edited by Wolfgang Molkow, Rainer Peters, and Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, brings together three distinct perspectives on the composer’s opera, politics, and friendships. And Franz-Josef Heumannskämper, in *Dear Billy* , makes the correspondence between Henze and the baritone William Pearson accessible for the first time—a historical document about *El Cimarrón*, artistic collaboration, and the political upheavals of their time.
Three books explore the personalities of composers in very different ways. Klaus Reichert writes in “I welcome whatever happens next”: Memories of John Cage —drawn from decades of close personal acquaintance; the English edition is scheduled for release in July 2026. Bettina Zimmermann opens with *con tutta forza: Bernd Alois Zimmermann* , using unpublished letters and photographs to offer a personal window into the composer of *Die Soldaten*. And Andreas Dorfner presents “Die Soldaten” by Bernd Alois Zimmermann: A Monolith in Two Parts the most comprehensive analytical study to date of this key 20th-century opera.
How can musical thinking be conceptualized beyond established categories? Sandeep Bhagwati's collection of essays *Śabdagatitāra: How to Weave Musics* brings together three decades of reflection on composition, improvisation, and cultural exchange. In The Voice of Music —now also available in paperback—outlines a systematic philosophy of music for the 21st century. And with our new essay series SYNKOPEN, edited by Nicolas Donin, Steven Takasugi, and Magdalena Zorn, we are creating a space for shorter, incisive contributions: Eloain Lovis Hübner on compositional thinking beyond music, Peter Kraut with one hundred short and one hundred long answers to the question of where music ends, Nikolaus Gerszewski offering aphoristic reflections on art and perception, and Magdalena Zorn herself on the “acoustheology” of late modernity.
For Wolke, 2026 is also the year in which a separate magazine section is launched. With Tempo. The Quarterly Review of New Music , we’re taking over the internationally leading journal of contemporary music, founded in 1939, from Cambridge University Press—the first issue under our banner will be published in January 2026. In addition, kaput – Magazine for Insolvency & Pop, an English-language magazine at the intersection of music, art, politics, and pop culture.
Whether in print, in the concert hall at "wolke in concert," or during a discussion at MaerzMusik × Wolke Library: We don’t see our books as an end point, but rather as a starting point for encounters. You can download the 1/2026 Mid-Year Preview—featuring all titles, prices, and ISBNs—here on our website; a print copy will be included free of charge with every order placed through our online store. If you don’t want to miss any new releases, events, or issues of *Tempo* or *kaput*, the best way to stay informed is to subscribe to our newsletter here.
Patrick Becker
January 2026
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