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Tier 3 · vertical & regional
Hans Otte
Person · male · Germany · Plauen · born 1926 · died 2007 · recording since 1984
German composer (1926-2007)
Also known as ハンス・オッテ
Timeline
10 events▣ Album 7◦ Birth 1★ Debut release 1† Death 1
1920s
1980s
· Debut release
Debut release: Das Buch der Klänge / The Book of Sounds
First documented Album in the MusicBrainz discography.
source: musicbrainz
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Biography
English biography317 words · 1 sectionssource: wikipedia-en · licence CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1360364534
Biography
Hans Günther Franz Otte (3 December 1926 – 25 December 2007) was a German composer, pianist, radio promoter, and author of many pieces of musical theatre, sound installations, poems, drawings and video art. From 1959 to 1984 Otte served as music director for Radio Bremen. Beginning in the early 1960s, he frequently presented experimental American minimal music composers in his Bremen radio festival Pro Musica Nova, including John Cage, David Tudor, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young.
Otte was born in Plauen. He studied in Germany, Italy, and at Yale University in the United States. His teachers included the composer Paul Hindemith and the pianist Walter Gieseking. From 1959 on, Otte lived and worked in Bremen, Germany. His catalogue of compositions contains more than 100 works.
Some of Otte's works, especially his extended suites for solo piano, are characterized by very minimal means but are nevertheless quite subtle and sophisticated in their architecture and expression. For his work, Otte drew significantly on European and Asian spirituality, integrating various prayers into the fabric of the music.
Das Buch der Klänge (The Book of Sounds, 1979–82) and Stundenbuch (Book of Hours, 1991–98) are his best-known pieces in this genre, and Otte often performed them himself. His last public recital was given in Amsterdam in 1999. Recordings of these works, with Otte as performer, are available on CD.
In 1991 his work "KlangHaus" became a permanent interactive sound installation in the Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen in Bremen, Germany, where he died.
A book, Hans Otte : Klang der Klänge = Sound of sounds, by Ingo Ahmels (de), was published in 2006. An accompanying DVD contained excerpts from a conversation with Otte by Ahmels in 1999, and further excerpts from conversations with Herbert Henck from 2001, and with Hans-Joachim Hespos from 2004. It also contained the Otte-Werkeverzeichnis (OWV), a complete catalogue of Otte's works compiled by Ahmels, and authorized by Otte.
Discography & profile
Normalised profile
Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 9 | 54.3th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 8 | 81.1th |
| Studio albums | 7 | 87.5th |
| Awards recorded | 1 | 89th |
| Timeline events | 10 | 86.7th |
| Recording span (years) | 23 | 51.9th |
| Genres | 2 | 74th |
Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.
Discography (8 release groups · 7 studio albums)
Albums · 7
Das Buch der Klänge / The Book of Sounds
1984 · studio album
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Tracklist · 12 tracks · 1:11:16
1Das Buch der Klänge: Part 18:402Das Buch der Klänge: Part 27:573Das Buch der Klänge: Part 35:534Das Buch der Klänge: Part 44:295Das Buch der Klänge: Part 58:286Das Buch der Klänge: Part 63:177Das Buch der Klänge: Part 78:448Das Buch der Klänge: Part 84:339Das Buch der Klänge: Part 93:4310Das Buch der Klänge: Part 105:5711Das Buch der Klänge: Part 114:5812Das Buch der Klänge: Part 124:371995 · studio album
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Tracklist · 6 tracks · 56:58
1Siebengesang35:302Wassermannmusik: I.6:293Wassermannmusik: II.3:054Wassermannmusik: III.4:555Wassermannmusik: IV.1:576Wassermannmusik: V.5:021999 · studio album
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Tracklist · 12 tracks · 1:17:31
1Das Buch der Klänge: I10:322Das Buch der Klänge: II9:403Das Buch der Klänge: III6:194Das Buch der Klänge: IV4:345Das Buch der Klänge: V5:306Das Buch der Klänge: VI3:427Das Buch der Klänge: VII11:258Das Buch der Klänge: VIII5:159Das Buch der Klänge: IX3:0910Das Buch der Klänge: X9:5611Das Buch der Klänge: XI2:3712Das Buch der Klänge: XII4:52Orient:Occident / Minimum:Maximum
2005 · studio album
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Tracklist · 2 tracks · 55:29
1Minimum:Maximum41:012Orient:Occident14:282007 · studio album
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Tracklist · 48 tracks · 57:07
1Stundenbuch: 11:092Stundenbuch: 20:573Stundenbuch: 31:174Stundenbuch: 41:045Stundenbuch: 51:026Stundenbuch: 60:407Stundenbuch: 71:128Stundenbuch: 80:529Stundenbuch: 92:2610Stundenbuch: 100:5511Stundenbuch: 110:5812Stundenbuch: 121:2113Stundenbuch: 132:1714Stundenbuch: 141:2015Stundenbuch: 151:3316Stundenbuch: 160:4517Stundenbuch: 171:3518Stundenbuch: 180:5519Stundenbuch: 191:0420Stundenbuch: 200:5721Stundenbuch: 211:1322Stundenbuch: 221:0523Stundenbuch: 230:5324Stundenbuch: 241:4525Stundenbuch: 251:0226Stundenbuch: 260:3027Stundenbuch: 272:1328Stundenbuch: 281:0029Stundenbuch: 290:4730Stundenbuch: 300:5931Stundenbuch: 311:0332Stundenbuch: 320:5133Stundenbuch: 330:4634Stundenbuch: 341:4035Stundenbuch: 350:5336Stundenbuch: 361:1237Stundenbuch: 371:0638Stundenbuch: 380:5139Stundenbuch: 390:5340Stundenbuch: 400:5741Stundenbuch: 411:0542Stundenbuch: 421:2843Stundenbuch: 432:4144Stundenbuch: 441:1845Stundenbuch: 451:2146Stundenbuch: 461:0447Stundenbuch: 471:0748Stundenbuch: 481:052010 · studio album
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Tracklist · 12 tracks · 1:07:23
1Das Buch der Klange: Part I6:352Das Buch der Klange: Part II8:183Das Buch der Klange: Part III5:494Das Buch der Klange: Part IV4:285Das Buch der Klange: Part V5:076Das Buch der Klange: Part VI2:527Das Buch der Klange: Part VII8:508Das Buch der Klange: Part VIII4:479Das Buch der Klange: Part IX4:0310Das Buch der Klange: Part X7:4711Das Buch der Klange: Part XI4:3712Das Buch der Klange: Part XII4:102024 · studio album
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Tracklist · 12 tracks · 1:11:23
1The Book of Sounds: Pt. 17:342The Book of Sounds: Pt. 28:323The Book of Sounds: Pt. 35:054The Book of Sounds: Pt. 45:055The Book of Sounds: Pt. 55:536The Book of Sounds: Pt. 63:267The Book of Sounds: Pt. 78:018The Book of Sounds: Pt. 85:099The Book of Sounds: Pt. 92:4610The Book of Sounds: Pt. 1011:4911The Book of Sounds: Pt. 113:3012The Book of Sounds: Pt. 124:33
Album · 1
| Cover | Year | Title | Notes | First release |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Das Buch der Klänge / Stundenbuch / Face à FaceSearch SpotifySearch YouTube Music | Compilation | 2006 |
Stats & PK
Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put Hans Otte head-to-head →
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 9 | 54.3th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 8 | 81.1th |
| Studio albums | 7 | 87.5th |
| Awards recorded | 1 | 89th |
| Timeline events | 10 | 86.7th |
| Recording span (years) | 23 | 51.9th |
| Genres | 2 | 74th |
Awards & honours
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | Rome Prize of the German Academy Villa Massimo | won |
Where this record comes from
aliases/urls—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/83df956c-fee3-4360-918e-2a05f68bb631discography—musicbrainz · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://musicbrainz.org/artist/83df956c-fee3-4360-918e-2a05f68bb631core—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q327040seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Ottebiography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Otte
Why this artist is in the database
- List of composers by name
Tier rule: curated genre/region list
Image: no portrait (not displayed: the licence credit is missing)
Wikidata: Q327040 · MusicBrainz: 83df956c-fee3-4360-918e-2a05f68bb631
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