The rediscovery of The Bassarides, which Albrecht achieved in 1985 in Berlin with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, was particularly commendable and made the piece a "modern classic", which has since become an integral part of the operatic performance canon. The success was e.g. repeated in 1996 with Albrecht and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
Henze was fascinated by Albrecht's idea of a "sounding museum" in Berlin, which could provide children an intuitive and meaningful approach to sounds and music, especially contemporary music, and became an avid supporter of this project.
For his European tour with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in 2000, Albrecht ordered a new piece from Henze, the Seven Boleros (Sieben Boleros), which he then premiered to great effect at the Canary Islands Music Festival in Las Palmas. Enthusiastic about Albrecht's affinity for Japan, Henze then suggested to him that his 1990 opera The Ocean Betrayed (Das verratene Meer) should be based on Mishima's original Japanese text and, with various musical and textual additions, be given its Japanese premiere. This was achieved with great success and the new, now original Japanese title Gogo No Eiko in 2003 in Tokyo's Suntory Hall. Gerd Albrecht again conducted the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. However, he scored his greatest coup in 2006, on the composer's 80th birthday, when he performed Gogo No Eiko with new changes, deletions and extensions, again in Japanese, at the Salzburg Festival (with artistic director Peter Ruzicka at the time), equal to a new world premiere. He performed the piece with the Torino National Orchestra of the RAI not only in Salzburg but also in Berlin and Torino. In preparation for this work, the conductor went to see the composer in Marino in the early summer of 2006 and the last, very friendly meeting between the two took place at the Salzburg performance.
Now we mourn the loss of Gerd Albrecht, the last witness to this great and unique artistic friendship.
