Wolfgang Rihm

Two large works for ensemble by the German composer Wolfgang Rihm (1952-2024), both premiered by ensemble recherche and here recorded by the same group for the first time. Sphäre um Sphäre for ensemble and Frage for female voice and ensemble, the latter dedicated to the ensemble, show Rihm making new works out of earlier ones by inscription, contrafacture and overpainting.

Rihm was born in Karlsruhe and studied there with Eugen Werner Velte, Wolfgang Fortner and Humphrey Searle, then in the 1970s with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and Klaus Huber in Freiburg. In 1985 he succeeded Velte as professor of composition in Karlsruhe, and in 2003 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. The voice in Frage is Salome Kammer, and Lucas Vis conducts. The ensemble includes the cellist Lucas Fels, the percussionist Christian Dierstein and the pianist Klaus Steffes-Holländer. The Freiburg-based group has been active since 1985. The disc is a coproduction with Westdeutscher Rundfunk, produced by Harry Vogt.

Rihm speaks of "vegetative composing" for his relation to his material, and elsewhere of reacting "seismographically" to the energy inherent in sound objects. Frage was written in 1999 and 2000 on a commission from WDR, and Kammer and ensemble recherche gave the first performance in Cologne on 28 October 2000. Around the voice stand cor anglais, clarinet, percussion, harp, piano, viola, cello and double bass. In five parts and 33 minutes, the piece borrows two approaches from the visual arts, the linear and the planar or object-like, and two painting techniques, overpainting and inscription. It is embedded in a network of references to visual art, recombining elements of different ages into a montage.

Sphäre um Sphäre, 27 minutes in one span, takes the opposite route. Here a model is completely reworked in the form of a contrafacture, so that the new piece grows out of an existing one rather than out of assembled fragments. Rihm worked on it from 1992 to 2003, and ensemble recherche premiered it in Paris on 27 October 2003 under Vis. It is written for eleven players: flute, oboe, clarinet, percussion, harp, two pianos, violin, viola, cello and double bass. Both pieces belong to a catalogue that IRCAM counts at more than 400 works, much of it shaped by Rihm's interest in painting and literature.

CD, Wergo WER 6677 2, released in 2005, 61 minutes.