Here's a look at the rehearsals of Wolfgang Rihm’s Sound As Will with the Klangforum Wien. The 20-minute piece for trumpet and ensemble will be performed for the very first time at the Donaueschinger Musiktage this Saturday morning, 11:00.
In the photo: conductor Ilan Volkov, composer Wolfgang Rihm, trumpet player Marco Blaauw and members of the Klangforum Wien.
The concert will be broadcast by SWR2, listen live.
Stephen Smoliar of the Examiner has reviewed the North American première of Wolfgang Rihm’s Harzreise im Winter by baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber. The two of them had premièred Rihm’s musical setting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Harzreise im Winter earlier this year at the Mozartfest Würzburg.
Read about the evenings programme, which “amounted to a journey through Goethe’s poetic achievements”, on the Examiner.
Tonight’s performance of Transitus forms a prelude to the world première of Wolfgang Rihm’s Trio Concerto for violin, violoncello, piano and orchestra. The Concerto will be performed by Trio Jean Paul and the WDR Sinfonieorchester under the baton of its chief conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
View the full score of Transitus.
Wolfgang Rihm: Trio Concerto
for violin, violoncello, piano and orchestra | 25'
prem.17.09.2014, Philharmonie; Trio Jean Paul: Ulf Schneider, vln; Martin Löhr, vlc; Eckart Heiligers, pno; WDR SO Köln, cond. Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Wolfgang Rihm: Transitus
for orchestra | 15
17.09.2014, Philharmonie; WDR SO Köln, cond. Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Read the full programme of the Musikfest Berlin:
In the second episode of Hear and Now’s “The Arditti Quartet at 40” a performance of Wolfgang Rihm’s Fetzen and Fetzen 2 will be broadcast. The quartet was recorded earlier this year during a three concert marathon at the Barbican Centre’s Milton Court. The programme is presented by Ivan Hewett.
Listen to the performance and an introduction by Ivan Hewett live on BBC Radio 3 at 23:00 British Summer Time.
More Universal Edition radio highlights are available on our Performance Calendar.
Wolfgang Rihm’sTransitus was commissioned by La Scala in Milan with the request that it should allude to the works of Richard Strauss. Tonight, on 5 September, the work will be performed for the first time in Germany, Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts the WDR SO Köln.
The composer on how he deals with people who label Richard Strauss as a “conservative”:
What am I supposed to deal with? – the label? – that people place it on Strauss and occasionally on me, too? In both cases, it depends on who is attaching the label; only then can you know what it means. What could it mean? “Conservative” could be a stance including thinking in avant-garde categories even today. If you look at it that way, of course I am not conservative. It’s too bad, actually, since the avant-garde nurtured me. But the designation “conservative” is mostly applied to someone who does not insensibly float along in the flow of the fashionable trends of the day. From that viewpoint, I can quite rightly and justifiably be called a conservative. And Strauss? – ask him yourself. He is still alive, in a senior citizens’ home in Darmstadt. He jogs over the cemetery there every day…
View the full score of Transitus.
Wolfgang Rihm: Transitus
for orchestra | 15'
prem. 05.11.2014, Philharmonie, Cologne; WDR SO Köln, cond. Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Composer Wolfgang Rihm, pianist Tzimon Barto and conductor Christoph Eschenbach at the general rehearsal for the world première of Wolfgang Rihm’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg.
Read (German) reviews of the concert on Die Presse and Drehpunkt Kultur.
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Ö1 will broadcast a recording of the concert on 7 September at 11:03. Listen live. |
For Wolfgang Rihm the horn is the “instrument of melos” par excellence. He has now written a horn concerto for Stefan Dohr, the principal horn player with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, in which Dohr can show what his instrument is capable of: wide, seemingly endless arches and an impressive delivery of force. However, the virtuosity lies not only in the fast passages, but also in depth: the invention of sounds.
Lislot Frei of the SRF has recently reviewed Wolfgang Rihm’s Horn Concerto, which was premièred on 19 August by Stefan Dohr and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (cond. Daniel Harding) at the Lucerne Festival. Read the review on SRF [German].
Find out more about Universal Edition at Lucerne here.
The Austrian première of Wolfgang Rihm’s musical setting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Harzreise im Winter [Winter Journey in the Harz Mountains] was performed last Tuesday by baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber at the Salzburg Festival.
Read reviews on Der Standard and FAZ.
Wolfgang Rihm’s Will Sound More Again for ensemble will be performed today, 8 August, at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music by the Studio musikFabrik (cond. Peter Veale).
The following works from the UE catalogue will be performed in Darmstadt within the next few days:
Wolfgang Rihm: Will Sound More Again
for ensemble
08.08.2014, Lichtenbergschule; Studio musikFabrik, cond. Peter Veale
Georg Friedrich Haas: Introduktion und Transsonation
for 17 instruments and tape | 17'30''
10.08.2014, Böllenfalltorhalle; Klangforum Wien, cond. Sylvain Cambreling
Morton Feldman: 3 Clarinets, Cello and Piano
for 3 clarinets, violoncello and piano | 8'
12.08.2014, Orangerie; Trio Catch
Morton Feldman: Piano and String Quartet
for piano and string quartet | 90'
16.08.2014, Centralstation; Heloisa Amaral, pno; Anon String Quartet
Wolfgang Rihm has been awarded the Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music 2014. This is the second time the prize has been awarded, with Pierre Boulez being the awardee of the prize in 2012.
The award ceremony will take place on 6 November at the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz.
Wolfgang Rihm’s In Verbundenheit, which is dedicated to the Arditti Quartet, was premièred on 10.05.2014 at the Witten New Music Days, one of the world's leading contemporary music festivals.
This Saturday at 23:00pm CET/CEST, Tom Service talks to Harry Vogt, director of the Witten New Music Days, and they will play recordings from the festival, among them the world première of In Verbundenheit for string quartet.
Listen live on BBC Radio 3.
Wolfgang Rihm’s Transitus will be premièred tonight at La Scala by Riccardo Chailly and the Filarmonica della Scala. Two days later they perform the Swiss première of the orchestral work in Lugano.
Transitus was commissioned by La Scala in Milan, who wished for it to allude to the works of Richard Strauss. When asked if he had been influenced by Strauss’ virtuosity as an orchestrator, Rihm replied: “Virtuosity is not a value in itself: any star pupil can be a virtuoso. What is really important is what energy is moved – and how much energy is moved! There is so much virtuoso music that doesn’t go anywhere. No movement, just everything shaking, flailing and glistening. But music is all about conveying energy. The quality of a piece of music is determined by its energetic charge and flows. In his finest moments, Strauss creates an incomparable maelstrom of relentless flow.”
View the full study score of Transitus:
Wolfgang Rihm: Transitus
for orchestra | 15'
world prem. 05.05.2014, Teatro alla Scala, Milan; prem. 07.05.2014, Palazzo di Congressi, Lugano; Filarmonica della Scala, cond. Riccardo Chailly
Tomorrow, Friday 4 April, the Ensemble Resonanz will start their tour de France together with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras. They will perform Franz Schreker’s Scherzo, Wolfgang Rihm’s Nachtordnung, Arnold Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht and also Matthias Georg Monn’s concert for violoncello and string orchestra.
They will give concerts on Friday at the Maison de la Culture in Grenoble, on Monday at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris and on Tuesday at the Arsenal in Metz.
Furthermore, Queyras and the ensemble are promoting their recent cd release on harmonia mundi; here is a German interview with Jean-Guihen Queyras on Berg, Schönberg and the recording:
The interview is also available in French.
Tim Ashley of The Guardian has reviewed the recent publication of Wolfang Rihm’s Dionysos, available now on DVD and Blu-ray. The recording is from the world première of the opera, with which the Salzburg Festival opened in 2010.
The full review is available at The Guardian. Find out more about the DVD at EuroArts.
Wolfgang Rihm on the creation of Dionysos:
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Wolfgang Rihm, Franz Welser-Möst and Friedrich Cerha after the performance of Cerha’s Étoile, performed by Martin Grubinger and The Percussive Planet on 21 November at the Konzerthaus, Vienna.
View the full score of Étoile or watch a video interview in which Friedrich Cerha talks about his music.