Albums

Wolfgang Rihm
musica viva vol. 32 - Requiem-Strophen

NEOS 11732
October 2018

Wolfgang Rihm
Sphären

NEOS 11520
June 2017

Peter Ablinger, Ondřej Adámek, Friedrich Cerha, Brian Ferneyhough, Hanspeter Kyburz, Kryštof Mařatka, Wolfgang Rihm, François Sarhan, Salvatore Sciarrino, Simon Steen-Andersen, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Jennifer Walshe
Donaueschinger Musiktage 2014

NEOS 11522-24 / NEOS 51501
October 2015

Andreas Dohmen, Saed Haddad, Lars Petter Hagen, Wolfgang Mitterer, Wolfgang Rihm, Rebecca Saunders, Iris ter Schiphorst, Hans Thomalla
Donaueschinger Musiktage 2011

NEOS 11214-16
October 2012

Wolfgang Rihm, Ernst Toch
Konzert in einem Satz - Konzert für Violoncell und Kammerorchester

NEOS 11038
August 2011

Wolfgang Rihm, Béla Bartók
Schrift-Um-Schrift

NEOS 11032
August 2010

Wolfgang Rihm
Vigilia

NEOS 10817
April 2010

Wolfgang Rihm
La musique creuse le ciel

NEOS 10721
June 2009

Wolfgang Rihm
Piano Pieces

NEOS 10717/18
May 2008

Ole-Henrik Moe, Saed Haddad, Wolfgang Rihm, Julio Estrada
Donaueschinger Musiktage 2006 Vol. 1

NEOS 10724
September 2007

“A composer must be both highly intellectual and emotional in music.”

Wolfgang Rihm, born in 1952 in Karlsruhe, already attempting to realize this idea in his early works, had to face an initial wave of misunderstanding and disagreement. The first works, that the student of Eugen Werner Velte, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Wolfgang Fortner and Klaus Huber presented at the Donaueschingen Festival in the 1970s, provoked intense and controversial discussions. At the same time, Rihm was nonetheless recognized as an exceptional talent and both encouraged and supported in his endeavours. In 1978 he was awarded the Kranichstein Music Prize, followed a year later by the Villa Massimo Scholarship in Rome. His two chamber operas Faust und Yorick (1976) and Jakob Lenz (1977–78), along with his dramatic works Die Hamletmaschine (1983–86), Oedipus (1986–87), Die Eroberung von Mexiko (1987–91) and Séraphin ( 1994) established Rihm’s position as one of the most important contemporary composers of musical theatre. Alongside this he also wrote more than 200 orchestral works and pieces of chamber music.

Since 1978 Wolfgang Rihm has regularly lectured at the Darmstadt Summer Courses and has been a professor of composition since 1985 at the Karlsruhe Music Academy, where he simultaneously heads the Institute for New Music. Some of his most renowned former students are Vykintas Baltakas, Rebecca Saunders and Jörg Widmann. Rihm has been awarded a multitude of prizes for his work as a composer: Beethoven Prize of the city of Bonn (1981), Rolf Liebermann Prize (1986), Bach Prize of the city of Hamburg (1999), Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award (2000), Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2003), Knight Commander’s Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany (2014), Mark of Honour of the Land Salzburg (2015) and many others. Incited by the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, he wrote four companion pieces to the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms, which were fully performed for the first time in August 2012 at the Lucerne Festival. Since the summer of 2016 he has been the General Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy. In January 2016 his orchestral work Reminiszenz/Triptychon und Spruch in memoriam Hans Henny Jahnn was premiered as part of the opening ceremony of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

Wolfgang Rihm divides his time between Karlsruhe and Berlin.