Wolfgang Rihm: Music for Violin and Orchestra

Proof of purchase.

Naxos has given us two new CDs of music by contemporary classical composer Wolfgang Rihm.  I have admired Rihm’s music for many years.  His creative output is enormous and most of his 400-plus compositions have never been recorded, many have not even been performed.   His music ranges from dissonant to lyrical, from complex to accessible, and it varies throughout all forms of instruments.  Rihm is a true prolific genius of the classical music realm.

These new CDs collect what are essentially violin concertos of various lengths ranging from about 16 minutes to almost 31 minutes.  Both were recorded in March 2016 with Volume 1 becoming available late last year and Volume 2 just out this spring.  Being hypermodern, Rihm doesn’t bother with traditional forms of musical classification as the six named works featured here attest.  Volume 1 features both the earliest and the most recent violin orchestrations.

Dritte Musik is from 1993 and runs a little over 17 and half minutes.  As the name implies (“Third Music” in English) this was Rihm’s third foray into violin concertante.  Solo violin and percussion rupture out of nothing with the violin erratically bowed and plucked.  Violent passion and contemplative silence alternate and punctuate throughout the piece.  I find the percussion to be marvelous as the violin dances around, eventually giving way to the larger orchestra ebbing and flowing.  The multiple moments of reflective calm are constantly interrupted with glorious bursts and stabbing chords of orchestral power until the piece concludes almost imperceptibly with a few isolated chords by the violin. 

Lichtzwang was composed 1975-76 and is a much more atmospheric piece.  The orchestra is front and center here with woodwinds and flutes most forcefully accompanying the violin, which often shrieks with long-sustained notes at high registers like rays of light ripping through the sonic clouds of orchestration.  This gathers an ever-increasing sense of urgency, tempestuously until, suddenly, everything becomes nostalgically sweet; only momentarily, of course.  Electric organ adds an almost chorale effect to the piece.  Then, near the end, silence becomes the atmosphere through which violin, organ and supporting orchestra explore various ideas, fading away.

Composed in 2014, Gerdicht des Malers (“Poem of the Painter”) is one of my favorite pieces in this collection.  At 16:08 this music is shortest piece in the two-CD collection.  It is also a more delicate, subtle and whimsical work than the other offerings.  The combativeness often apparent in the previous pieces is set aside for something more like rumination, if not actually harmonic.  The typical Rihm passion is still here but the gentle sonic explorations make for a more pleasurable listening experience.  This is certainly one of the more accessible pieces offered.

CD Two begins with one of Rihm’s most performed works, Gesungene Zeit (“Time Chant”).  Composed in 1991-92, this is easily the most emotional piece in the collection, probably the quality that leads to its popularity.  The violin emerges softly, ethereal with wonderfully relaxed, layered sonic textures.  A massive work almost 28-minutes in length, this single-movement, concerto-like piece gradually adds more and more instruments to the melancholy mix until a certain rhythm is realized.  One of the most distinguishing characteristics of this work is the fact the violinist plays continuously, without pause, from start to finish.  The centerpiece of the work is a bit more agitated, but this only serves as a refreshing break from the otherwise measured nature of the composition.  The final portion exposes us to a swarm of strings, strong, slow horns, and a return to the otherworldly essence that makes this work a thing of true beauty.  Here and there, Rihm makes splendid use of silence and absence again as the music journeys to closure in singular, isolated notes on the violin.

Whenever I acquire new music by Rihm, I become acquainted with it over a series of obsessive hearings.  Initially, most of it feels foreign and not relatable to my amateurish musical palette.   Gradually, however, certain pieces stick in my head and I find myself joyfully ruminating over specific phrases.  Such is the case with Lichtes Spiel (2009) whose opening is hauntingly beautiful.  Aspects of it remind me of Anton Webern and Bela Bartok, both of whom I’m sure are inspirations to Rihm.  The opening is eloquent yet sophisticated.  The entire 17 and a half minute piece captives me with a sense of being constantly on the edge of familiarity without ever actually achieving such ease.  This is my favorite piece in the collection.  


COLL’ARCO completes the collection.  This concerto is the longest of the works presented, lasting just slightly under 31 minutes.  Composed in 2007-2008, this is the only work I was already familiar with, having first heard it back in 2013.  Initially, there is a dream-like, almost pastoral quality to this music.  Soon the violin becomes more aggressive, however, the music more ominous and brooding, despite brief moments of tenderness.  The ending affords the opportunity for much virtuosity by the violinist and concludes unexpectedly with a simple evaporation of sound after such a sprawling sonic journey.  Poof!  The work as a whole features more technique than passion.

Altogether, these 2 CDs are an exciting addition of my classical collection by one of my favorite living composers.  His credentials are a prolific and powerful catalog of music in every aspect of the classical genre from opera to solo works.  These violin pieces show his multifaceted talents are equally influenced by avant-garde and late Romantic styles.  The liner notes to CD 1 summarize Rihm’s massive body of work superbly: “Contemporary without being self-consciously ‘modern’, while making relatively infrequent recourse to the novel or unorthodox playing techniques favored by his contemporaries, these works are free in their evolution while lacking nothing in formal logic or expressive consistency – thereby making for music as cohesive as it is thought-provoking.”