Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm Michael ( born March 13, 1952 in Karlsruhe ) is a German composer and essayist.
Biography
Wolfgang Rihm grew up in his hometown. Inspired by early encounters with painting, literature and music, he began composing in 1963. During his school years at the grammar Bismarck High School, he studied composition with Eugen Werner Velte 1968-72 at the University of Music Karlsruhe. He worked on the music of the Second Viennese School, Arnold Schoenberg orchestrated piano pieces op 19 and oriented themselves temporarily at aphoristic - terse style of Anton Webern. Further composition teacher of Wolfgang Rihm Wolfgang Fortner and Humphrey Searle were. Parallel to the High School in 1972 he laid the state exam in composition and music theory at the Musikhochschule from. This was followed by studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen 1972/73 in Cologne and 1973-76 at the University of Music in Freiburg with Klaus Huber (composition) and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht ( musicology ). First own experience as a lecturer collected 1973-78 Rihm in Karlsruhe, from 1978 at the Darmstadt Summer Courses (which he had attended since 1970) and 1981 at the Musikhochschule in Munich. In 1985 he took over as the successor of his teacher Eugen Werner Velte the chair of composition at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe.
After the performance of his orchestral piece Morphonie - Sector IV at the Donaueschingen Music Days 1974 Rihm found in subsequent years wide recognition within the music industry. Since 1982 he is board member of the German Composers' Union, since 1984, member of the Presidium of the German Music Council, since 1985, a board member of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation, since 1989, he serves on the board of GEMA. 1984/85 and 1997 he was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin and member of the Presidium of the German Music Council, 1984-89 associate editor of the music magazine " Melos " 1984-90 musical advisor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, 1990-93 musical advisor of the Center for Art and Media Technology ( ZKM) in Karlsruhe. Invited by Walter Fink, he was in 1995, the fifth in the annual composer composer's portrait of the Rheingau Musik Festival.
Wolfgang Rihm lives in Karlsruhe and Berlin. He has a son and a daughter. The Free University of Berlin honored him in 1998 as an artist who "in his very extensive compositional freedom of creative work embodies and promotes an aesthetic of freedom of art, has written numerous theoretically grounded writings possess the extraordinary musicological significance. "
Influences, procedures and stylistics
As a composer and writer on music Rihm represents an aesthetic that represents the subjective need for expression in the center. Models in this sense were for him Hans Werner Henze, later Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono later. In addition, literary texts him provided significant impetus: the poetry of Paul Celan, the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, the theater writings of Antonin Artaud and Heiner Müller. The formulated by James Joyce idea of a " work in progress" has so far influenced him, as he liked looking at his pieces as temporary ( " experiments "), which - by extension, supplement, Tropierung, networking and integration of previously developed material - each other continuously can correct or complete them. Rihm used for this purpose like metaphors from the visual arts, he speaks of " repainting " or of sculpture:
I have the idea of a large music block that is in me. Each composition is also a part of him, as well as a chiseled into him physiognomy.
Comparable methods there are, among others, in the work of Pierre Boulez ( this is called " derivatives " and " growths "). 1973 learns Rihm Austrian painter Kocherscheidt know, whose open, radical way of drawing has spoken to him directly. Influenced also have him young artists of the Art Academy in Karlsruhe, who have taught since the 1970s there and should be the most important representatives of German painting of the 1980s, later, including Markus Liipertz, Georg Baselitz and Per Kirkeby.
Stylistically can be roughly three periods in the work of Rihm distinguished: His early pieces are linked to a tradition that spans from the late instrumental works of Beethoven, to Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. Because of their dedicated subjectivity Rihm's music was then occasionally attributed to the so-called New Simplicity. From the 1980s, a laconic and expressive style become scarce; Sounds are interpreted as a sign ( " ciphers " ), in the sense of a new exploration of musical semantics. From the 1990s, eventually these two items appear pointedly as thesis and antithesis; also investigated Rihm always possibilities of a synthesis. Increasing conciseness of musical formulation gives rise to formation of high virtuosity.
Compositions
In addition to numerous compositions for small ensembles and three symphonies he wrote stage works. From his first chamber opera Faust and was Yorick ( 1976, with a libretto by Frithjof Haas based on the eponymous play by Jean Tardieu ) known. 1983-86 was followed by The Hamlet Machine, a music theater piece in five parts with a libretto based on the play of the same and 1987 Oedipus after or with texts by Sophocles. 1992 brought the Hamburg State Opera The conquest of Mexico by him to the stage. Proserpina (2009), based on the eponymous play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Schwetzingen Palace Theatre and on Nietzsche fantasizing opera Dionysos (2010, Salzburg, Berlin, Amsterdam) are his more recent works great.
Texts
- Wolfgang Rihm: Definitely. Writings and conversations. 2 vols, ed. by Ulrich Mosch. Amadeus Verlag, Winterthur 1997. Publisher Schott, Mainz 1998. ISBN 3-7957-0395-6
- Wolfgang Rihm and Reinhold Brinkmann: Music think. Con brio Verlag, Regensburg 2001
- Wolfgang Rihm: Open ends. Hanser Verlag, Munich and Vienna 2002
- Wolfgang Rihm: eulogy for Pierre Boulez. In: Music Concepts 89/90. Edited by Heinz- Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn. Pp. 7-15. ISBN 3-88377-506-1
Exhibitions
- 2012: time items. Wolfgang Rihm, Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe as part of the European Heritage Days 2012 Music builds Europe