These two CDs present a live recording of the premiere in the Nationaltheater Mannheim in March 1987. Under Peter Schneider as conductor and Friedrich Meyer-Oertel as stage director, the ensemble offers up a forceful performance.

"Heiner Müller's text 'Die Hamletmaschine' from 1977 is an intellectual turning point, an 'endgame' of drama: There are no continuous plot and no assigned parts any longer; time has become a lumpy sphere, and multi-layered images pass like an imaginary theatre. [...] With his partly impetuous, partly excessive lyrical music, 'polluted' by quotes and pseudo-quotes and thus also being 'open', Wolfgang Rihm managed to 'grasp' this unwieldy text and achieve a great success at the world premiere of 'Die Hamletmaschine'." (Fono Forum)