Dark play and wild waltzes: composer Wolfgang Rihm dies
Published: Saturday, Jul 27th 2024, 13:40
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Wolfgang Rihm was one of the most important composers of his generation. The world-famous artist and artistic director of the Lucerne Festival Academy left behind an almost unmanageable oeuvre.
Rihm's catalog of works lists more than 400 compositions. These range from a piano waltz lasting just a few seconds to the almost two-hour-long monster ballet for large orchestra "Tutuguri".
Rihm regularly supplied international opera houses and chamber musicians were keen to premiere his works. And when a prestigious piece was needed for the opening of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg, a "new Rihm" was a popular choice.
The Lucerne Festival paid tribute to him as "one of his closest companions". Rihm was associated with Lucerne as a composer and, since 2015, also as artistic director of the Lucerne Festival Academy. More than 50 of his works have been performed there over two decades, including many commissioned works and world premieres. It all began in 1992 with the piece "Gesungene Zeit" for violin and orchestra with Paul Sacher, Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Collegium Novum Zurich.
No "connection mess"
Wolfgang Rihm was committed to the provinces and composed for the world. He lived in Karlsruhe from birth. He began composing at the age of eleven. While still at school, he studied composition with Eugen Werner Velte at the University of Music in Karlsruhe. From 1985, he was his successor as composition professor.
Wolfgang Fortner and Karlheinz Stockhausen were formative teachers. But composer friends such as Luigi Nono and Wilhelm Killmayer also left their mark on Rihm's works - with Nono standing for rigid compositional rigor and Killmayer for playful openness.
Rihm's music is popular without being pandering. "Crossover" was anathema to him, he called it "connecting mash". He mastered the compositional means of the avant-garde just as virtuously as traditional techniques. He always succeeded in getting listeners emotionally involved.
As a result, he is one of the few composers whose works have found their way into the normal repertoire. The list of prizes and awards that Rihm has received is long. He was pleased about this, but also knew: "A prize doesn't tell you what the next note is called."
Wine and water
Rihm's music is often dark. His orchestral piece "Dunkles Spiel", for example, is characterized by the sound of low instruments - bass clarinet, contrabassoon, cellos and double basses. "Several short waltzes" for piano four hands, on the other hand, is playfully elegant, only to suddenly turn into wild outbursts. These miniatures are as ingenious as they are easy, composed for friends. Even young piano beginners can perform a "real Rihm" at home.
Wolfgang Rihm is a "writer-musician and music writer" and, in the combination of both forms, the "most characteristic mind of our time" - this is how the jury of the Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music described him on the occasion of the award ceremony at the end of 2014.
The father of two grown-up children, who lived with his wife in Karlsruhe and was the overall artistic director of the Lucerne Festival Academy from 2016, was an art connoisseur and gourmet. How he was able to create such an extensive body of work is a mystery to many.
But Rihm was also a disciplined worker. Motto: "Wine in the evening, only water during the day!" Or, as his late composer friend Pierre Boulez described it: "Rihm is a musician who has an extremely enviable inventive lightness."
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