Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm sets poems from Heiner Müller, Hermann Lenz and Rainer Maria Rilke to music. Listen to a living document about one of the most important lied composers of our time.
Wolfgang Rihm’s confrontations with the written word hold a special place among the more than 400 compositions he has written in the course of his long career. The composer, highly versed in reflecting on his own approaches and techniques, expands the textual material instead of labeling it, adding additional levels of musical language to the words. Yet the pieces, though inspired by a text, still hold their own as strong and independent works of music. The exactness of his methods is fascinating: All three song cycles on this album have been written specifically for Christoph Prégardien (tenor) and Siegfried Mauser (piano). The two musicians performed the premieres (»Nebendraußen« 1998, »Ende der Handschrift« 2000, »Rilke: Vier Gedichte« 2002) and left a lasting legacy when they recorded their interpretation and musical expression of Wolfgang Riehm’s compositions on this CD in 2003. With this production you hear the true original.