Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm, born in 1952 in Karlsruhe, is one of the most significant and versatile composers of contemporary music. His works have been regularly performed at the Salzburg Festival since 1982, where his output was also profiled in depth in 2000 (seven concerts as part of the ‘Portrait Wolfgang Rihm’) and 2010 (ten concerts in the ‘Continent Rihm’ series). His ‘opera fantasy’ Dionysos premiered here in 2010; and most recently Die Eroberung von Mexico (The Conquest of Mexico), described by the composer as ‘music-theatre’, was performed in a new staging in 2015. His address ‘What does music say?’, delivered at the opening ceremony of the 1991 Salzburg Festival, is still relevant today.

With inexhaustible imagination, creative vitality and keen self-reflection, Rihm has produced a huge oeuvre of over 400 compositions from all musical genres. The titles of his works, such as Jagden und Formen, the Chiffre cycle and Pol – Kolchis – Nucleus, have become signposts in the history of music from the last few decades. Of similar significance are his works that invoke previous milestones in music history – for example, oratorios in the Bachian tradition (Deus Passus: Passion Fragments after St Luke), orchestral works that invoke Brahms (Ernster Gesang, Nähe fern 1–4), and chamber music that draws on Robert Schumann (Fremde Szenen I–III). Another area of particular focus for the composer is music theatre, with works including Faust und Yorick (1976), Jakob Lenz (1979), Oedipus (1987), Die Eroberung von Mexico (1992) and Séraphin (1994).

Wolfgang Rihm wrote his first compositions at the age of 11 and began studying with Eugen Werner Velte at the University of Music Karlsruhe while still at school. He continued his studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Klaus Huber and, in the field of musicology, Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht. He was also particularly influenced by composers such as Morton Feldman, Wilhelm Killmayer, Helmut Lachenmann and Luigi Nono, to whom he dedicated several works. In 1970 he attended the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt for the first time, where he has also been a lecturer since 1978. Wolfgang Rihm became a professor of composition at the University of Music Karlsruhe in 1985. His students have included Rebecca Saunders and Jörg Widmann.

As an intellectually curious musician, Rihm also engages in intensive dialogue with the other arts. His precise, philosophically informed thinking on problems of artistic creativity has broadened the horizons of listeners and readers alike.

Wolfgang Rihm has received numerous prizes and grants for his work. He was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit in 1989 and an honorary doctorate by the Free University of Berlin in 1998. In 2000 he received the Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and in 2001 the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for his orchestral work Jagden und Formen. In the same year, he was appointed an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Foreign Ministry. He was also awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2003, the Baden-Württemberg Medal of Merit in 2004 and the German Great Cross of Merit with Star in 2014.