I really like this guy...but i think it's because i knew when to stop collecting! the guy's prolific, and i've heard, uneven, but i've enjoyed just about everything i've heard.
srt. qrts. 3,5,8-arditti qrt.
Time Chant by AnneSophie Mutter
Formen und Jagden
Trio Basso Vol.1 (vla,vnc,bs trios by Rihm, Kalitzke, Kagel, and...????)
Music for 3 Strings/ Fremde Scenzen (pn. trio- both pieces over 50min. each!)
)a few scattered pieces on DG(
the piano sonatas...the chiffres...
i had the Kairos disc of some chiffres, but...eh, they all seem to work up the culminating Formen und Jagden which seems to contain all their ideas in one structure. now THIS piece i like, and early on, the tuba makes this great otherworldly sound. this piece always sounds like it's stopping...like he's writing stream of consciousness and he puts down the pen to go to the bathroom, and when he comes back he just picks up and goes in a different direction.
apparently Lachenmann and Rihm don't get along
but all the string chamber music i've heard i consider state of the art '79-'91 era avant garde. he's up to 12 or 13 qrts. now, and i know some reviewers think it's too much, and i know my pocketbook can't take it (wanna take about the economy?)
and i love his big forehead!
There is a link to the Rhim work somewhere in this forum, "Two other movements."
I really like the piece, he's a living composer I should investigate further, the above piece merits it. He's on my list, but I'm busy with Webern at the moment... :-\
Jagden und Formen rocks, a real knock-out piece. On the other hand, I tried the Arditti 4tet disc and couldn't make much headway - the music just seemed to meander in various avant-garde directions.
perhaps you might like a cd incl. a RECENT (his style's changing) clarinet qnt. + new quartet.
listen again to qrt no.8, the latest at the time ('88). compare to Nono's qrt. still, it HAS been 20 years of growth since then. the complete cycle is avail.
he does sometimes prefer patience-wearing time lengths. but Formen und...J justifies all in it's 90s exhuberance. and the string trio and piano trio are both grueling yet i find rewarding at 50min each.
I have the chance to go to Carnegie Hall in October. One of my choices is the Takacs string quarter. They are playing Beethoven, Schumann and Wolfgang Rihm. I know Rihm is contemporary, but what is his style? Is it accessible to the average, middle-of-the-road concertgoer--fun or irritating? I often like contemporary, both music and visual art.
Quote from: Harpo on April 21, 2009, 04:18:46 AM
I know Rihm is contemporary, but what is his style? Is it accessible to the average, middle-of-the-road concertgoer--
No :)
Based on the quartets I've heard, Rihm takes off from avant-garde composers like Nono and Xenakis. The occasional evocation of romantic style is not likely to make things easier for a listener who doesn't do anything more radical than, e.g., Bartok or Shostakovich.
Quote from: Harpo on April 21, 2009, 04:18:46 AM
I have the chance to go to Carnegie Hall in October. One of my choices is the Takacs string quarter. They are playing Beethoven, Schumann and Wolfgang Rihm. I know Rihm is contemporary, but what is his style? Is it accessible to the average, middle-of-the-road concertgoer--fun or irritating? I often like contemporary, both music and visual art.
My answer would be a little different to Spitvalve's -- it would be "which quartet are they playing?"
Rihm's style is certainly highly erratic, there are some works that could be described as frankly neoromantic (and to my mind he does the neoromantic style with far more conviction than pretty much any of his peers) but many others might be less accessible to a listener who has little interest in new music.
I do wish more of Rihm's music were available on disc--but given his huge output the scattered coverage is hardly surprising.
"Which quartet are they playing?" ?? The program says it's the New York premiere of Quartet #11, so I doubt it's on CD yet. I think it might make a nice contrast to Beethoven and Schumann, anyway.
I agree that Rihm's forehead makes him look like one of the 2nd generation Star Trek characters. Of course, men who are balding just claim that their foreheads are getting bigger. ;D
I do believe SQ No.11 is available on one of those "col legno" type labels. Is it the Minguet? SQ?
SQ No.11 is definitely in the middle of Rihm's over the top prolific phase of the 90s. As stated, lately he veers from one style to another and back again, from piece to piece. I imagine No.11 isn't easy listening, and I have heard some grumblings about his later SQs (on Amazon?). It might just depend how looooong it is! Please get back to us!
In view of this composer's Martinu-like prolificity, would anyone like to put together a list of "essential Rihm"?
"The Essential Rihm" sounds like one of those Philips 2fers (The Essential Lutoslawski,etc). Looking over his works list (up to 1990) I find this...well...un-do-able. What I've noticed is that a little bit of Rihm goes a very long way. I would simply see what the major labels have to say, which makes choices pretty obvious. I think a lot of people might find a work they like, and then in frustration spend lots of $$$ going down the rabbitt hole for another masterpiece. Stick with the pieces that brought him fame (1976-1988). The initial list at the top of this thread should do, but just to reiterate:
Jagden und Formen (DG)
Time Chant (DG-Mutter)
SQs 3,5,8 (Arditti)
Music for 3 Strings (CPO/Kairos) Go w/CPO- 50min
Fremde Szenen? (piano trio-CPO/Kairos) Go w/CPO- 50min
Trio Basso Vol.1 (vla,vnc,bs-Koch Schwann) w/Kagel, Kalitzke, etc.
Clarinet Qnt (1988)???
Klavierstuck No.5-7
Chiffres (CPO 2-cd) though J+F is a culmination of this series
opera?- Conquest of Mexico
I don't even have all of these, and I have no real desire to go further. The vocal/orch pieces on Abbado's DG "wein modern" series are harrowing enough if I need to remind myself. To find a good concerto or symphonic work you'll need someone who has already plunked down the $$$ to advise you (and how many of THEM are there?). But I won't touch it...just too much stuff.
READ AS MANY REVIEWS AS YOU CAN FIND FIRST!
But don't get me wrong. What I have, I really really butlike I said, it goes a looong way. Jagden und Formen+Mutter, or Arditti...then you're on your own!
How about Tutuguri? Here's a review:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=6314
There's also a 2-disc set containing Morphophonie and some other pieces. Any1 heard it?
Quote from: Spitvalve on April 22, 2009, 09:45:14 PM
How about Tutuguri? Here's a review:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=6314
There's also a 2-disc set containing Morphophonie and some other pieces. Any1 heard it?
I have a lot of Rihm.
Tutuguri is
awesome and I usually dislike contemporary vocal music.
Morphonie is an essential piece, as it was the one that sort of launched his career when it was premiered in Donaueschingen. A few others that stand out are
Kein Firmament,
Ins Offene/
sphere and, of course, the 3/5/8 quartets played by the Arditti. You also won't go wrong with any of the SWR/Hanssler CDs.
Well I just can upon an interesting surprise.
For those of you, like me, believe a little Rihm goes a long way, yet you ARE eager to try some more, here's something.
It came to my attention the Jorg Widmann had a few pieces whose titles sounded just like Rihm (Jagdquartett, Attempts at a fugue, Dunkles Saiten), and as it turns out, the clarinetist/composer is Rihm's student!
The Leipziger Quartett has recorded all of Widmann's quartets (4-last with soprano), and for someone like me who has been very satified with the Arditti 3/5/8 of Rihm, but am hesitant to delve into his later quartets, this Widmann disc really piqued my curiosity. I feel like I already know what it's going to sound like, which is, hopefully, "good" Rihm. It just seems like the perfect "arditti" disc (since they don't seem to be making too many of those anymore). Well, if anyone can find a review I'd be interested, or any personal account.
and btw- Rihm's 11th SQ...it is not mentioned in the Arditti rep. list. IS there an "11", or is it one of the short "Fetzen"? Perhaps No.11 was written for another SQ (sacre bleu!) and so it's not in their rep.
Quote from: snyprrr on May 02, 2009, 12:46:31 PM
and btw- Rihm's 11th SQ...it is not mentioned in the Arditti rep. list. IS there an "11", or is it one of the short "Fetzen"? Perhaps No.11 was written for another SQ (sacre bleu!) and so it's not in their rep.
Rihm's 11th was written for the Takacs Quartet and remained unfinished for a long time. It was finished in 2007 and premiered earlier this year.
Interesting.
What of Widmann? It would not be off topic to bring him in.
Anyone?
Quote from: snyprrr on May 04, 2009, 01:26:36 AM
What of Widmann? It would not be off topic to bring him in.
I tried some Widmann yesterday, so far it is very very interesting. I'm already adding a few of his works to my list of CDs to get.
For those who are interested a Proms Composer Portrait of Widmann will shortly be on BBC R3 and then a short piece will be part of the next Proms concert...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lwrrc
Quote from: Harpo on April 21, 2009, 04:18:46 AM
Is [Rihm] accessible to the average, middle-of-the-road concertgoer--fun or irritating?
If it isn't accessible, then shame on the average, middle-of-the-road concertgoer, I'd say. (Last I checked, it was 2009. Why, I'm listening to Busratch and Yoshihide's
Time Magic City right this minute, an hour+ extravaganza of high turntablism. Oh, it's fun!!)
Which brings me to your second point, fun or irritating. Fun or irritating to whom? That amotr concertgoer? Probably irritating. But again, that's to say nothing (NOTHING) about the music, only about the amotr concertgoer. I find Rihm to be often quite enjoyable, though not often (not often enough) as inventive or as adventurous as his older colleague, Lachenmann.
The two disc set with
Morphonie and the three
Klangbeschreibungen is absolutely marvelous, I'd say. And the string quartet #10 is very tasty indeed.
I had purchased an album that had Rihm's "Dis-Kontur für großes Orchester", "Lichtzwang-Musik für Violine und Orchester (In Memorium Paul Celan)", and "Sub-Kontur für Orchester." I have had some difficulty appreciating them. With no liner notes on my MP3 downloads, it's been harder to delve deeper.
Anyone care to comment on these? Any additional thoughts that may help the "lay" listener?
What else do you listen to? I don't think that any liner notes will help (and might, indeed, hinder). But listening to other music probably will. Kurtag, Lachenmann, Huber, Dutilleux even. Some Czernowin and Chin, maybe.
But those are only possibilities. If you're unfamiliar with avant garde European instrumental music generally, then you might want to start getting familiar. (And Rihm isn't at all a bad place to start, come to think of it!) If you are familiar with it, then it may just be something about Rihm (and these are early Rihm, when he was in his early twenties). In either case, nothing beats listening, and listening again, and listening again.
Quote from: some guy on July 29, 2009, 07:30:32 PM
In either case, nothing beats listening, and listening again, and listening again.
Word. 8)
--Bruce
Quote from: some guy on July 29, 2009, 02:26:52 PM
The two disc set with Morphonie and the three Klangbeschreibungen is absolutely marvelous, I'd say. And the string quartet #10 is very tasty indeed.
Absolutely agree about the two disc set. I will have to listen to #10 again to see how tasty I find it. Last night I listened to the 2005 version of Verwandlung 2 for orchestra and found it delicious.
I feel I probably haven't given it the "listening" (as recommended and seconded) it deserves. The first time, I was just on my couch (we recently had had our 4th child, and I was letting my wife get some sleep in -- so it was late and I had the headphones in). The second time was at work -- simiilarly a bad time to get much out of it. I definitely need to give it a couple more listens.
As far as who I listen to, I'm probably less "contemporary" -- or at least I've never heard of the composers you presented. Any suggestions (maybe I can get this on their respective composers pages)? I have tried to broaden my horizons -- I tend to like James MacMillan, but I can't say I've taken many "chances" with regards to more "contemporary" composers.
Thanks!
Well, if you already like MacMillan, then Dutilleux would be the easiest next step, I'd guess. I know some very cautious listeners (OK, it's just the one) who also find Klaus Huber palatable, not sure why! (I know why I find Huber enjoyable; I'm not sure about the cautious listener.)
Biggest point I can make is this, twentieth century music is all accessible, if you've got the ears for it. We tend to forget how inaccessible 18th and 19th century music sounded to a lot of its auditors, because by now we've all got the ears for it. Hence the advice to listen and listen and listen. Not every piece by every composer will repay that effort, but that's pretty much true no matter what era a piece is from. (And not every listener will find every composer likable. I don't care much for Telemann, for instance.)
Thanks for the suggestions.
I also found your statement about the accessibility of 20th century music as refreshing. Not to say that I've applied that, but it gives me the courage to make some of those choices. Sure, I may not like them -- but, as you mentioned this may happen irregardless.
If I use MacMillan as an example. I got two CDs a long while back and didn't appreciate them at the time. Then I gave him another shot and found something that was lacking in my first few listens (a passion I don't necessarily hear in some older works). (Looks like I need to do the same thing to a series of SQs I got by Gloria Coates!)
Quote from: monafam on July 30, 2009, 07:40:47 AM
(Looks like I need to do the same thing to a series of SQs I got by Gloria Coates!)
If you can come to appreciate
Gloria Coates string quartets, you can pretty much tackle anything else. Just out of curiosity, which works by
MacMillan do you have?
The thing with
Rihm is that he writes in many different styles so when you hear a new piece you can never be sure which he is using this time or perhaps a completely new one.
My favorite work by
Rihm is probably either
die Hamletmaschine or his
St. Luke Passion. The Passion is very much in the style of Bach while
die Hamletmaschine is in the style of pure mayhem. So which one I want to hear depends on how I feel.
Quote from: UB on July 30, 2009, 07:59:08 AM
out of curiosity, which works by MacMillan do you have?
I am work, so it's possible I won't get all of these right --
"The Confession of Isobel Gowdie"
"The Exorcism of Rio Sumpúl"
"Epiclesis"
"Memento"
"Seven Last Words from the Cross"
"St John Passion"
"Visions of a November Spring"
"Veni, Veni, Emmanuel"
"Triduum"
(There might be some more...)
So many of Rihm's works from the late 1980s and the early 1990s seem clearly inspired by the final works of Luigi Nono. They've got the same interest in spatialization, and the same form of pianissimo gestures separated by gaping silences. Are there any publications where Rihm speaks of his appreciation for Nono's music?
Quote from: CRCulver on July 30, 2009, 11:15:31 AM
So many of Rihm's works from the late 1980s and the early 1990s seem clearly inspired by the final works of Luigi Nono. They've got the same interest in spatialization, and the same form of pianissimo gestures separated by gaping silences. Are there any publications where Rihm speaks of his appreciation for Nono's music?
Rihm's appreciation for Nono is one of those well-known facts, most texts about him mention that in one way or another. I guess Rihm's
Das Eismeer (aka
La Lugubre Gondola) attests to that admiration.
Quote from: petrArch on July 30, 2009, 01:13:18 PM
Rihm's appreciation for Nono is one of those well-known facts, most texts about him mention that in one way or another. I guess Rihm's Das Eismeer (aka La Lugubre Gondola) attests to that admiration.
It does, being the last of five pieces subtitled "Music in memory of Luigi Nono". (The other four are
Cantus firmus,
Ricercare,
abgewandt II and
Umfassung.)
Edward - Do you know if there are recordings of Cantus firmus and Ricercare? I do not seem to have them and a search of Amazon and the web did not seem to turn them up.
Thanks
Quote from: UB on July 30, 2009, 11:42:59 PM
Edward - Do you know if there are recordings of Cantus firmus and Ricercare? I do not seem to have them and a search of Amazon and the web did not seem to turn them up.
Thanks
If there are, I'm not aware of them. So much Rihm, so little recording budget....
Well, Susan (i.e. Harpo) & I have just returned from our NYC vacation, and attended the Takács Quartet concert at Carnegie Hall - the program included works by Schumann, Rihm, and Beethoven - I liked the Beethoven the best (but have this group's complete output of Ludwig's SQs); the Rihm (SQ No. 11) I liked the least - was suppose to reflect the 'flowing of a river' but seem to just meander w/ occasional irritating string playing - hey, just me - I own so many SQs that I enjoy thoroughly.
So, my question (and not owning any recordings by this apparently prolific and possibly erratic composer?) is if I want to purchase a few discs of this composer, what are some to consider as first choices? There seems to be a lot of conflicting comments on this thread concerning Rihm and his many works as to their quality & variety - thus, looking for something that I may enjoy, possibly his more post-Romantic output? Just not sure w/ no listening experience - would appreciate any suggestions - thanks.
Quote from: SonicMan on October 22, 2009, 04:18:08 PM
So, my question (and not owning any recordings by this apparently prolific and possibly erratic composer?) is if I want to purchase a few discs of this composer, what are some to consider as first choices? There seems to be a lot of conflicting comments on this thread concerning Rihm and his many works as to their quality & variety - thus, looking for something that I may enjoy, possibly his more post-Romantic output? Just not sure w/ no listening experience - would appreciate any suggestions - thanks.
I'm not the most experienced Rihm listener either, but I reiterate my love for
Jagden und Formen. Also, being on DG it's probably easy to find.
I don't much like the Rihm quartets I've heard, either - your description ("seem to just meander w/ occasional irritating string playing") captures my own experience (and I haven't even heard #11!). But I would like to explore his large-scale work a bit more.
(what LvB did they play, by the way?)
Quote from: Contents Under Pressure on October 22, 2009, 10:46:08 PM
I'm not the most experienced Rihm listener either, but I reiterate my love for Jagden und Formen. Also, being on DG it's probably easy to find.
DG found the 20/21 series very unprofitable and has deleted most of the discs from its catalogue, including
Jagden und Formen. Grab a copy while you still can.
Quote from: snyprrr on April 22, 2009, 12:24:23 PM
"The Essential Rihm" sounds like one of those Philips 2fers (The Essential Lutoslawski,etc). Looking over his works list (up to 1990) I find this...well...un-do-able. What I've noticed is that a little bit of Rihm goes a very long way. I would simply see what the major labels have to say, which makes choices pretty obvious. I think a lot of people might find a work they like, and then in frustration spend lots of $$$ going down the rabbitt hole for another masterpiece. Stick with the pieces that brought him fame (1976-1988). The initial list at the top of this thread should do, but just to reiterate:
Jagden und Formen (DG)
Time Chant (DG-Mutter)
SQs 3,5,8 (Arditti)
Music for 3 Strings (CPO/Kairos) Go w/CPO- 50min
Fremde Szenen? (piano trio-CPO/Kairos) Go w/CPO- 50min
Trio Basso Vol.1 (vla,vnc,bs-Koch Schwann) w/Kagel, Kalitzke, etc.
Clarinet Qnt (1988)???
Klavierstuck No.5-7
Chiffres (CPO 2-cd) though J+F is a culmination of this series
opera?- Conquest of Mexico
I don't even have all of these, and I have no real desire to go further. The vocal/orch pieces on Abbado's DG "wein modern" series are harrowing enough if I need to remind myself. To find a good concerto or symphonic work you'll need someone who has already plunked down the $$$ to advise you (and how many of THEM are there?). But I won't touch it...just too much stuff.
READ AS MANY REVIEWS AS YOU CAN FIND FIRST!
But don't get me wrong. What I have, I really really butlike I said, it goes a looong way. Jagden und Formen+Mutter, or Arditti...then you're on your own!
Starting with PostNo.10, there is some "Essential Rihm" talk. Really, everyone has covered the bases here pretty well. Be careful WHICH PIECE you get.
Jagden und Formen is probably the best bet. I looove the
Arditti SQs for their intractable hipness.
I'm sorry to hear the SQ No.11 was,... well, do I still "need" to hear it? Probably, haha! ::) (you all had some interesting discussion about seeing this SQ No.11 quite a few months ago, very cool) I haven't seen much, if any, activity in the Rihm discography of late, and perhaps Rihm might be falling out of favour at the moment, hmmm?
I mean, for a living composer, having people like you see his work here and there is nice, but if it's not coming out on cd, what are you going to do? I was totally surprised to see the Rihm thread boosted, like, what tsunami happened here?, and I wonder what fate awaits the Lachenmann and Sciarrino thread, and so forth...
High Modernism is dead. Long live High Modernism! 8)
Quote from: snyprrr on October 24, 2009, 08:55:23 AM
I haven't seen much, if any, activity in the Rihm discography of late, and perhaps Rihm might be falling out of favour at the moment, hmmm?
Hanssler Classics continues their Rihm edition, which is supposedly to be like 6 or 7 discs by the time it is finished, and Kairos releases Rihm recordings pretty frequently. If DG no longer puts out Rihm like they did in the 1990s, it's because they don't release much by any contemporary composers anymore.
Rihm's opera Dionysus will be premiered at the Salzburg Festival next year, and Metzmacher has written an account (http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/dossier2_oper2010/) of its genesis.
This is an outstanding work. Rihm at his most contemplative, with sparse and quite refined textural writing, never boastful. A good reminder why I have so many of his works--it has been a very long while since I listened to anything by him.
http://www.amazon.com/Vigilia-Six-Voices-Ensemble-Hybr/dp/B003F18080 (http://www.amazon.com/Vigilia-Six-Voices-Ensemble-Hybr/dp/B003F18080)
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71zl7CHjYtL._SL500_AA300_.png)
I am ambivalent about Rihm, which says more about me than his music. He is certainly a very compelling man, personally - I've heard him talk on several occasions. I attended a "Happy New Ears" talk/concert at which he was present and then found the music very involving - one of his things connected with Artaud's Théatre de Séraphin and Die Eroberung von Mexico, this latter "Musiktheater" then being performed several times at the Frankfurt Opera. I loved it and even more (without the rather confusing production) the CPO recording of the work's first performance in Hamburg conducted by Metzmacher: real music theatre for the ears. I have not yet been able to achieve the plateau phase with Jagden und Formen, but am going to try again soon. Fremde Szenen, I agree, is marvellous, a sort of evocation of romantic music without any PoMo quotation. I also very much enjoyed my one experience of Jakob Lenz, the chamber opera which introduced me to his music. In fact in general, as with Henze, I am more affected by his music when it has a literary kernel or nimbus. This applies too to his Deus Passus, his St.Luke passion (Hänssler) - very affectingly performed, almost traditional in expression at times, it ends with the best Celan setting I know, "Tenebrae" - remarkable and unsettling, no happy ending here. I was present at the first performance of his 8th quartet by the Arditti (who also did a rather clinical version of the Bartók 4th quartet, I remember), but I got little joy of its almost unremitting rush of violent string figurations, like a waterfalll of acid rain which you cannot escape. (This is my recall of it - I must try and listen again some time. I've heard a couple of the earlier ones on disc but was not very enthusiastic.) But my second hearing of his music was his stunning Wölffli-Lieder for baritone and orchestra (conducted by Behlohlávek), which was on vol.10 of Deutscher Musikrat's survey of music of the Federal Republic of Germany - on LP (deutsche Harmonia Mundi), before it moved to RCA CD covering East German music too; unavailable now, of course. However, I see there is a very convenient Col Legno CD containing this work (Salter/Leningrad PO/Dmitriev, Klavierstück No.7(Wambach) , Frau/Stimme for soprano and orchestra(Gielen) and In-Schrift for orchestra (Zender), all at medium price, so nobody interested in an introduction to his work need hesitate - I am certainly going to acquire this myself. I must nevertheless recommend the excellent CPO CD containing only Lieder; Hölderlin-Fragmente, Neue Alexanderlieder, Vier Gedichte aus Atemwende von Paul Celan and the piano version of the Wölffli-Liederbuch (Salter/Wambach). These are pretty amazing works and I have no doubt that for a while (mid-70s to 80s) he was the major Lied composer of our time. This reminds me, somewhat by the way, that his teacher, Wilhelm Killmayer, also composed some very beautiful late Hölderlin settings (Wergo, Schreier/Klee) and wrote a superb homage to Schumann, Vanitas vanitatum 5 romances for violin and piano (CPO). Actually, I have excited myself by writing this and am going for that plateau stage or even higher this evening 8)
OK you Rihm experts out there - would any of you like to opine on this disc featuring 4 of Wolfy's concertos?
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51maEDM78BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Quote from: Velimir on October 28, 2010, 11:42:03 PM
OK you Rihm experts out there - would any of you like to opine on this disc featuring 4 of Wolfy's concertos?
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51maEDM78BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Worth it, as are all other Rihm releases on Hänssler. My favourite there is
Styx und Lethe.
Quote from: petrArch on October 29, 2010, 04:45:22 AM
Worth it, as are all other Rihm releases on Hänssler. My favourite there is Styx und Lethe.
You wouldn't happen to have the Complete SQs? I'm curious about 6,7, and, to a lesser degree, 9. I have 3-5, and 8, and frankly I like them all, but the ColLegno packaging is frustrating to me. However, if either 6-7 is a Masterpiece! ;) I'm not sure about his latest years.
Quote from: snyprrr on October 30, 2010, 11:44:51 PM
You wouldn't happen to have the Complete SQs? I'm curious about 6,7, and, to a lesser degree, 9. I have 3-5, and 8, and frankly I like them all, but the ColLegno packaging is frustrating to me. However, if either 6-7 is a Masterpiece! ;) I'm not sure about his latest years.
Curious that you ask, I have listened to all of them recently and, just like you, I like them all. I think the set is exceedingly good, and the Minguet Quartet do the music justice, even when compared to the Ardittis, who are probably my favourite SQ group ever. Now, the selection on the Arditti disc (#3, #5, #8) happens to be
very good, and it is a fine summary of Rihm's writing for SQ.
The 12 quartets are certainly different and it is a good overview of Rihm's various "personalities" and it is clear that he wanted different things with each piece (note that #11 is not present, but there is a pseudo #13,
Quartettstudie). To me, thinking about the quartets brings me good memories and pleasant associations, even if totally subjective, with
Kein Firmament,
Fremde Szenen and
Phantom und Eskapade, works that I thoroughly enjoy.
I see that you are interested in the longer ones; #6 is certainly the longest at almost 50 mins :).
There's a link to my CD collection in my signature, you can see what else I have of Rihm, if you have any further questions.
Quote from: petrArch on October 31, 2010, 03:06:06 AM
Curious that you ask, I have listened to all of them recently and, just like you, I like them all. I think the set is exceedingly good, and the Minguet Quartet do the music justice, even when compared to the Ardittis, who are probably my favourite SQ group ever. Now, the selection on the Arditti disc (#3, #5, #8) happens to be very good, and it is a fine summary of Rihm's writing for SQ.
The 12 quartets are certainly different and it is a good overview of Rihm's various "personalities" and it is clear that he wanted different things with each piece (note that #11 is not present, but there is a pseudo #13, Quartettstudie). To me, thinking about the quartets brings me good memories and pleasant associations, even if totally subjective, with Kein Firmament, Fremde Szenen and Phantom und Eskapade, works that I thoroughly enjoy.
I see that you are interested in the longer ones; #6 is certainly the longest at almost 50 mins :).
There's a link to my CD collection in my signature, you can see what else I have of Rihm, if you have any further questions.
Thanks, very interesting.
I also have the Alban Berg 4 (w/Schnittke, great album), live, which is searing, but yes, I'm glad that you confirmed positive on the rest. Haha, the only reason I mention the 5-6-7 cd is the the 8-9-10 (with the shorter quartets) runs under 50mins, I think! Shocking!
Then there's that clarinet and SQ piece,... but I haven't really been tempted by the music for violin and piano.
Deus Passus
[asin]B00005MLLQ[/asin]
This is Rihm at his most traditionalist. Gone are the angular, jagged irruptions of previous works, conferring this one with a smoother surface that rarely presents contrasting dynamics. The ear for sparse textures is unmistakable, as are the work's concision and directness, the main reasons why I find it enjoyable. Voices and choir are quite tolerable, despite the operatic character and the (usually) mostly unbearable vibrato. Overall, this is a meditative work without much of an arc, the structure being more episodic even though it flows quite seamlessly.
You can read an interesting essay about this work at http://theomniscientmussel.com/chapter-iv-wolfgang-rihm-and-deus-passus/
I want to express my appreciation for the Toucan's post above, which must have taken a lot of effort to research and write. It's posts like that which make this board useful :)
Meanwhile, I bought the disc of 4 concertos that I mentioned earlier. Haven't yet had time to listen to it properly however.
Quote from: toucan on March 10, 2011, 10:58:42 AM
Well, if the experts won't answer this, I will.
The intent of this CD may have been pedagogical as it samples music composed over a 20 year span - about half the career of a composer who is nearing sixty years old, already.
It is often hard to tell if Rihm is basically a conservative - a later day Pfitzner - who has absorded the lessons of Karleinz Stockhausen, with whom he has studied, if I am not mistaken; or if he is a modern, who likes to integrate the legacy of a bygone past into prophecies of an uncertain future.
The earlier work on this CD -Erster Doppelgesang (1980) would seem to bear out the former opinion. It is basically expressionist - an updated expressionism, if you will - and even tragic - modernized tragedy. While the newer one - Musik fur Oboe und Orchester (2002), is in the style that seems to characterize most of Rihms compostions from the current millenium (except when he succumbs to the dainty sirens of neo-classicism). It is in a basically post-webernian style - post-webernian defined as the style practiced by (or nexus of styles, the general direction taken by) modernists who have moved beyond serialism without giving up on modernity per se - the style of latter Boulez and Berio - or the gentler, kinder modernism of Sir Harrison Birtwistle (when Sir Harrison is not curtsying to the silly-looking tutus of neo-classicism).
Rihm likes to end his pieces on dramatic climaxes, which are usually accelerations of and precipitations from the usually slow pace of the music. In his earlier work, the climaxes are likely to be paroxisms of tragedy; but in his latter work, the climaxes are more humorous, as with the quirky, jazz-like ending of Marsyas (mentionned above) - and as with the climaxof this oboe piece, in which he seems to (gently) satirize a faintly clown-like tonality.
But do you like it? ;D
Quote from: toucan on March 10, 2011, 10:58:42 AM
Well, if the experts won't answer this, I will. [useful post snipped]
Thank you toucan for that response. I will however echo the snyprrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr's question:
Quote from: snyprrr on March 10, 2011, 10:11:27 PM
But do you like it? ;D
I did actually get a new Rihm piece: the 'basso trio' Verzeichnung-Studie(1986), for bass, cello, and viola. I have it on "Trio Basso Vol.1", but it is also available on the Kairos disc with the 'Trios'.
This piece lies squarely in Rihm's 'awesome' phase (haha), having the same things we've all enjoyed in the SQs from the same period. Nothing really to report other than a winning Rihm piece. The whole cd (Nicolaus Huber, Kagel, Rihm, Kalitzke) is quite super for what it is. This configuration is very evocative and disturbing. The Kalitzke piece has some of the best vocalizing (grunts and shouts of exertion) I've heard.
Quote from: toucan on March 13, 2011, 06:52:58 AM
My jury's still out on him (on Rihm, not Abbado) - but so far he seems rather uneven - perhaps a Hindemith or an Honegger for our time...
This seems to me to be a fair assessment at this moment in time. His enormous output (Universal Edition list 328 works) and huge stylistic range (from post-Nono to neo-Romantic) can be a barrier to assessing where he is, too.
Quote from: toucan on March 15, 2011, 06:26:11 PM
Heard something extraordinary this evening - Vers une Symphonie Fleuve III, by Rihm (1992/1995).
Does any1 know how many of these
Vers une Symphonie Fleuve things there are? And can any1 compare and contrast them? (And do we know if Rihm ever "got to" the symphony he was heading "towards"?)
Thanks for the rec. I heard Kurtag's
Stele played a by a Dutch youth orchestra in Prague some years ago. Impressive piece.
Quote from: Velimir on March 16, 2011, 12:50:55 AM
Does any1 know how many of these Vers une Symphonie Fleuve things there are?
There are four of them, the first three from 1995, the fourth from 1998.
Quote from: Velimir on March 16, 2011, 12:50:55 AM
And can any1 compare and contrast them? (And do we know if Rihm ever "got to" the symphony he was heading "towards"?)
The same recording (I assume it is the same, since the dates, conductor and orchestra match) is available on hänssler here:
[asin]B001ILK7EE[/asin]
...but since it is the only one I know, I don't have any others to compare with.
Quote from: Velimir on March 16, 2011, 12:50:55 AM
Thanks for the rec. I heard Kurtag's Stele played a by a Dutch youth orchestra in Prague some years ago. Impressive piece.
Stele is really good indeed.
Quote from: toucan on March 16, 2011, 07:30:34 AM
I do not own this Hanssler recording so I cannot be 100% sure. But the two pieces listed on the cover as 1. Symphonie and 2. Symphonie are probably his youthful symphonies of 1969 and of 1975, not Vers une symphonie fleuve I and II.
http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/rihmw.htm
Yes, they are indeed the two early symphonies.
Regarding the
Vers une symphonie fleuve series, there's also
fleuve V, which appears to be the last in the series. The five works are in ascending length (the first four growing from about twelve to about thirty minutes,
fleuve V is over an hour long).
I've heard bootlegs of both IV and V (which share a lot of material) and regard them as the '90s Rihm version of neoromanticism--highly dramatic and gestural works where Berg and Hartmann are obvious reference points; inevitably Mahler is as well. I'd love to hear commercial recordings made, as I think they stand with some Schnittke (
Peer Gynt, for example) as monuments to how much more ambitious a neoromantic style can be compared to comparatively "safe" composers like the later Penderecki.
Quote from: toucan on March 16, 2011, 07:30:34 AM
I do not own this Hanssler recording so I cannot be 100% sure. But the two pieces listed on the cover as 1. Symphonie and 2. Symphonie are probably his youthful symphonies of 1969 and of 1975, not Vers une symphonie fleuve I and II.
http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/rihmw.htm
Yes, those symphonies are not the
Vers une symphonie fleuve I and II. What I meant is that the recording of III there is the same as that in
Musik in Deutschland 1950-2000.
Does anyone know of a recording of I? I have never found it even as a webcast recording/
Fetzen [asin]B004EHLMQG[/asin]
Quote
Fetzen means "scraps" or "shreds", and what began as a short piece for string quartet with that title in 1999 was expanded over the next five years in typical Wolfgang Rihm fashion into a cycle of eight equally tiny pieces. Five of them added an accordion to the string quartet, and another (Fetzen 4) was written for just viola and accordion. But the proliferation didn't stop there – in 2001 the original Fetzen 1 was incorporated wholesale into Rihm's much more substantial 12th String Quartet, with other material interleaved with it. Three years later, it also formed the basis for Interscriptum, which Rihm calls a "duo" for string quartet and piano. Played together with the two longer pieces as the frame, it makes an enthralling sequence, alternately hyperactive and glacially still. The accordion sometimes provides the still centre in either the high treble or the lowest bass around which the strings scurry and twirl, or sometimes holding sustained chords for the other instruments to ricochet off. It's superbly played here by the Ardittis, with the accordionist Teodoro Anzelotti, while Nicolas Hodges is the volatile pianist in Interscriptum.
Andrew Clements (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jan/27/wolfgang-rihm-fetzen-quartet-12-interscriptum-review)
From my part,
Fetzen is typical Rihm string quartet writing, in other words, intense, captivating, gripping, with moments of great serenity. The combination of string quartet and accordion works surprisingly well; timbres mesh seamlessly and the accordion makes me think of what Rihm would sound like if he wrote electronic music.
This sounds great - I love contemporary works using accordion, and very much admire all the performers on the CD, too.
Thanks for posting - wasn't aware of this.
--Bruce
Quote from: Leon on June 03, 2011, 06:51:54 AM
Looks like a interesting disc, which I have now wish-listed. I too am intrigued by the ensemble of SQ+accordion.
I, for one, am not a big fan of the Modern Accordion Music bandwagon that eeeeeverybody seems to be going gaga over. Except for a few snippets I've heard, it still just ends up sounding like an accordion to me, which, sorry, I have la-la-la/must-find-happy-place memories of (
Fiddler on the Roof?).
Perhaps Rihm is different here. I have a very similarly programmed cd by the Ardittis, on Winter&Winter, by Pintscher,... perhaps the Rihm would make a nice complement? I haaave kept this cd on the waaay back-burner for now: I'm totally frustrated that Vol.2 in the Arditti/Halffter cycle is only available from Spain,... with 20EU shipping!! :o
I'm still totally satisfied with my meager muster of Rihm,... at the moment (Subject to Change!!).
Verwandlungen[asin]B0040Y7EZQ[/asin]
Quote
The four orchestral pieces that Wolfgang Rihm has so far called Verwandlung all date from the last decade, and stylistically inhabit a world that owes more to Mahler than any other composer. They are allusive, freely associating pieces, the first, second and fourth each just over 15 minutes long, the third nearer 10, and each sets out on its musical journey from a different starting point – a single pitch, a guileless Ländler, a luminous texture, a series of emphatic attacks. The music seems to define its own form as it unfolds, with its long, sinuous instrumental lines, making passing references to a number of composers from Wagner to Sibelius, via Schreker, Strauss and Korngold, as well as toying almost nostalgically with conventional tonality. Verwandlung 2 ends unambiguously on an E flat major chord, while the fourth threatens to settle into D minor as comfortably as a Bruckner symphony. In Rihm's music it seems that everything – the whole of music history – is up for grabs, for reappraisal and for recycling
Andrew Clements (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/18/rihm-verwandlung-1-4-review)
Rihm here has composed a music that flows, that grows organically, whose gestures remind me of music of exactly 100 years ago.
Verwandlung 1 is the only one I can listen to without being bothered by the Mahleresque atmosphere and its weight and inertia, though the writing throughout all 4 is precise and concise. Fans of Schoenberg, Mahler and Sibelius should find here a comfortable bridge to a composer from the other end of the 20th century. For me, I'll go back to the
Klangbeschreibungen and the various -
Konturs.
Has anyone seen the horrendous DG cover of the BRAND NEW!!! Rihm/Mutter Chamber Disc :o!!
:D :D :D
:D :D :D
:D :D :D
Promo Please!! ;)
Agreed that Lichtes Spiel is the highlight of this disc; I wasn't so taken by Dyade, unfortunately. The Currier work has moments but seems a bit diffuse to me, while the Penderecki has the merit of compressing most of the major musical ideas of his last 35 years into a concise five minutes (and demonstrating how much he stretches limited material in his longer works).
One thing that strikes me about Lichtes Spiel is that it's the first time I've felt Rihm has fully puled off a Mozartean/Haydnesque 'lightness' (pace Calvino) in a work. Which isn't to say that it's an uninterrupted summer idyll, for--as throughout the tradition he inhabits--sometimes dark clouds do cover the sun for a while. If, as he gets older, Rihm is tending to play it safe as the successor to Berg, Hartmann and Henze, Lichtes Spiel is a fine example of how his natural intellectual curiosity helps him give the formula a much-needed twist at times.
I heard one of Rihm's string quartets in a bar once. I wish I remembered which quartet it was.
I think this thread should win the prize for most creative title.
I'm considering Rihm on Hanssler next:
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B001ILK7EE.01.L.jpg) (http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0040Y7EZQ.01.L.jpg)
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00008NRIR.01.L.jpg) (http://www.theclassicalshop.net/HiResArt/smart/HA%203010.jpeg)
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000O5B514.01.L.jpg) (http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000ZA32K0.01.L.jpg)
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B002NXSSXI.01.L.jpg)
Styx und Lethe I found to be one of his most enjoyable concertos, and Tutuguri seems to represent the composer at his most free to try a little bit of everthing. If you can handle the chamber music of Berg and the like, Rihm should pose no boredom problems - his string quartets are maybe of a more consistent quality than his orchestral music:
http://www.youtube.com/v/pRBxOe9W9yw
Defs wait until Edward's comments, though - he is much better at this than me ;D
Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on September 28, 2011, 12:35:26 PM
Styx und Lethe I found to be one of his most enjoyable concertos, and Tutuguri seems to represent the composer at his most free to try a little bit of everthing. If you can handle the chamber music of Berg and the like, Rihm should pose no boredom problems - his string quartets are maybe of a more consistent quality than his orchestral music:
http://www.youtube.com/v/pRBxOe9W9yw
Defs wait until Edward's comments, though - he is much better at this than me ;D
Thanks Sara for you help. I've only heard a couple of Rihm's works and I've enjoyed what I have heard so far.
I don't know all the pieces on these discs, so it's hard to make a categorical judgement--in my opinion Rihm's output varies widely in both style and quality. Of the discs you've posted the concerto disc with Styx and Lethe is a great cross-section of his first 30 years and can be recommended without hesitation. The disc with the first two symphonies is for the most part a collection of Rihm at his more neo-Romantic from a talented teenager to mid-career; the Verwandlungen disc is some of his more post-Mahlerian writing of recent years.
I wasn't particularly impressed by the vocal works on the last disc; nor the massive Tutuguri (one of his more polystylistic works). The Klangbeschreibung set has been a solid Rihm recommendation for over a decade; I found the title pieces to be somewhat reminiscent of Varese (with some hints of late Nono thrown in); Morphonie--the breakthrough piece that made his name--is a lengthy post-Hartmannesque single movement essay for string quartet and orchestra. And that's about all I can say about these.
I'll echo Lethe on his chamber music being more consistent; the Arditti disc of quartets 3/5/8 is a great introduction, and col legno (?) has recorded the lot. Also if you can get the DG20/21 disc of Jagden und Formen, that's a really fun romp. (Random tip: I think one of his best early works is the set of three Fremde Szenen, early examples of his lifetime fascination with Schumann's music.)
Quote from: edward on September 28, 2011, 04:05:29 PM
I don't know all the pieces on these discs, so it's hard to make a categorical judgement--in my opinion Rihm's output varies widely in both style and quality. Of the discs you've posted the concerto disc with Styx and Lethe is a great cross-section of his first 30 years and can be recommended without hesitation. The disc with the first two symphonies is for the most part a collection of Rihm at his more neo-Romantic from a talented teenager to mid-career; the Verwandlungen disc is some of his more post-Mahlerian writing of recent years.
I wasn't particularly impressed by the vocal works on the last disc; nor the massive Tutuguri (one of his more polystylistic works). The Klangbeschreibung set has been a solid Rihm recommendation for over a decade; I found the title pieces to be somewhat reminiscent of Varese (with some hints of late Nono thrown in); Morphonie--the breakthrough piece that made his name--is a lengthy post-Hartmannesque single movement essay for string quartet and orchestra. And that's about all I can say about these.
I'll echo Lethe on his chamber music being more consistent; the Arditti disc of quartets 3/5/8 is a great introduction, and col legno (?) has recorded the lot. Also if you can get the DG20/21 disc of Jagden und Formen, that's a really fun romp. (Random tip: I think one of his best early works is the set of three Fremde Szenen, early examples of his lifetime fascination with Schumann's music.)
Thanks for the detailed feedback, Edward. I'm still probably going to go with all of these Hanssler recordings.
Quote from: edward on September 28, 2011, 04:05:29 PM
I don't know all the pieces on these discs, so it's hard to make a categorical judgement--in my opinion Rihm's output varies widely in both style and quality. Of the discs you've posted the concerto disc with Styx and Lethe is a great cross-section of his first 30 years and can be recommended without hesitation. The disc with the first two symphonies is for the most part a collection of Rihm at his more neo-Romantic from a talented teenager to mid-career; the Verwandlungen disc is some of his more post-Mahlerian writing of recent years.
I wasn't particularly impressed by the vocal works on the last disc; nor the massive Tutuguri (one of his more polystylistic works). The Klangbeschreibung set has been a solid Rihm recommendation for over a decade; I found the title pieces to be somewhat reminiscent of Varese (with some hints of late Nono thrown in); Morphonie--the breakthrough piece that made his name--is a lengthy post-Hartmannesque single movement essay for string quartet and orchestra. And that's about all I can say about these.
I'll echo Lethe on his chamber music being more consistent; the Arditti disc of quartets 3/5/8 is a great introduction, and col legno (?) has recorded the lot. Also if you can get the DG20/21 disc of Jagden und Formen, that's a really fun romp. (Random tip: I think one of his best early works is the set of three Fremde Szenen, early examples of his lifetime fascination with Schumann's music.)
I agree with almost all of the above, with the exception that
Tutuguri caught me by surprise. After a not very good reaction to
Hamlet-Maschine, I wasn't expecting
Tutuguri to fare any better, but it did--I like it a lot. Of the
Dis-Kontur/
Lichtzwang/
Sub-Kontur disc, there is one of the
-Konturs that is average, but the other one is very good (sorry don't remember which, it's been a while since I played that CD).
To the above recommendations I would add:
- The violin and piano music CD on CPO, containing
Antlitz,
Phantom und Eskapade,
Hekton and the
Violin Sonata;
-
Kein Firmament, a personal favorite of mine, available on CPO, also containing
Sine Nomine;
-
Ins Offene/
sphere;
-
Fetzen.
But there are others... The
Chiffre cycle has some good stuff, although I found a couple of the pieces to be just downright annoying; the string quartets on Col Legno by the Minguet Quartet are very good, and you can perceive the stylistic evolution of the composer through that cycle (although the Arditti disc is
the reference).
Quote from: edward on September 28, 2011, 04:05:29 PM
I don't know all the pieces on these discs, so it's hard to make a categorical judgement--in my opinion Rihm's output varies widely in both style and quality. Of the discs you've posted the concerto disc with Styx and Lethe is a great cross-section of his first 30 years and can be recommended without hesitation. The disc with the first two symphonies is for the most part a collection of Rihm at his more neo-Romantic from a talented teenager to mid-career; the Verwandlungen disc is some of his more post-Mahlerian writing of recent years.
I wasn't particularly impressed by the vocal works on the last disc; nor the massive Tutuguri (one of his more polystylistic works). The Klangbeschreibung set has been a solid Rihm recommendation for over a decade; I found the title pieces to be somewhat reminiscent of Varese (with some hints of late Nono thrown in); Morphonie--the breakthrough piece that made his name--is a lengthy post-Hartmannesque single movement essay for string quartet and orchestra. And that's about all I can say about these.
I'll echo Lethe on his chamber music being more consistent; the Arditti disc of quartets 3/5/8 is a great introduction, and col legno (?) has recorded the lot. Also if you can get the DG20/21 disc of Jagden und Formen, that's a really fun romp. (Random tip: I think one of his best early works is the set of three Fremde Szenen, early examples of his lifetime fascination with Schumann's music.)
Jadgen und Formen: pulled this out the other night, out of the blue. Is that a tuba solo, oh I don't know, somewhere in the mid-beginning? That is one of the strangest sounds ever. The other thing I noticed is that it always sounds as if the piece is ending, but then the tension comes back, almost Simpson+Lindberg like. This 20/21 disc has been 5 Stars since its release, an obvious Victory & MustHave.
Violin Concertos: we now have two DGs, and the new one is getting good press here.
other DG:
Depart,
bildlos,weglosCPO: there's a disc of brass music,
Kein Firmament(?), and something else, that got bad reviews from a trusted source. There's a disc of Violin&Piano that really doesn't even sound all that interesting,... and a cd of Lieder (yikes, what can that sound like?),...
oh yes, and as you say, the disc of
Piano Trios, and the disc of
String Trios, BOTH, are Rihm at his late '70s/early '80s BEST. There is also a
baritone String Trio on Koch, and, along with that
3/5/8 Arditti disc (with ABQ filling in
No.4), you have Rihm's Chamber Strings in a nutshell. I look forward to hearing
SQs 6-7, and, that new disc with the
Fetzen Cycle is next on the list.
Chiffres: the more I heard this Kairos disc (or even the CPO), the more I heard Jagden und Formen in this music, to the point I abandoned these 'pieces' for the DG 'slab'. I mean, it's really the same material, right? Rihm does this all the time (Fetzen).
Clarinet Quintet: I haven't heard the cd of this. Anyone?
This seems to be at least the main portion of his Chamber Music. I don't know anyone who is clamoring for more Rihm Vocal Works. That leaves the Orchestral Music.
SOOOO,... other than the DG discs, and whatever one-off, is the consensus that the Hanssler
Styx und Lethe cd is the very best place to go first, for those of us who have been slightly wary of expanding our 'safe' view of Rihm (holding to those cds we already love, and afraid of the new (which, admittedly, has quite a few critics))?
Quote from: snyprrr on September 28, 2011, 07:41:29 PM
Clarinet Quintet: I haven't heard the cd of this. Anyone?
Typical late Rihm, focusing on the line and flow and looking back to the past repertoire. The quintet reminds me of a slowed-down
Jagden und Formen at times. It also has some reworked material taken from
Fetzen. A worthwhile work, but not one that I would put on the list of my Rihm all-time favorites.
Quote from: petrarch on September 28, 2011, 08:18:37 PM
Typical late Rihm, focusing on the line and flow and looking back to the past repertoire. The quintet reminds me of a slowed-down Jagden und Formen at times. It also has some reworked material taken from Fetzen. A worthwhile work, but not one that I would put on the list of my Rihm all-time favorites.
The Usual Suspects?
Quote from: snyprrr on September 28, 2011, 08:23:01 PM
The Usual Suspects?
Most likely; I have mentioned a few in a post earlier today.
Fetzen (Winter & Winter)
I was surely compelled to go for this second Rihm/Arditti outing, which contains a String Quartet, Piano Quintet, and Cycle of pieces for accordion & SQ, all based on the same 'fetzen', or,'scraps'. Since the music gets reused on this cd, the question is: do you like the materials assembled?
I was quite taken from the 'hello' of String Quartet No.12, a skittish and frenetic 13min. piece full of classic Rihm. For me, Rihm's hallmark is that I can always follow his writing as the pencil is hitting the paper: he sounds like he's writing straight from the fount of his imagination; I can practically hear the shards of pencil against paper. Rihm is a very physical Composer, would you say? The Piano Quintet 'Interscriptum' is like another facet of the same material, and I like this particular Piano Quintet. It is very bristling with energy, and yet never gets hysterical. The integration of the piano into the texture makes for a great back and forth comparison (they are not equal).
The Fetzen Cycle proper consists of pieces for accordion & string quartet which consist of the same musical material which eventually ends up in the other two pieces. I have been wary of the Modern Accordion (I have the companion disc of Pintscher,... which is ok (it gets better by being next to this though)), but here, Rihm really impressed me with his writing for accordion. In places it slithers below the strings, and makes some pretty quacky sounds!
Sincerely, this Winter & Winter cd absolutely sounds spectacular (as an SQ recording it's just lusciously beautiful), and the Ardittis actually seem to 'forge' a Rihm 'sound': perfection of its kind. This is one classy Rihm issue here. ;) Even the cover is so cool!
Rihm + Arditti = Solid Gold! 8)
The pencil-paper analogy is a good way to descibe his late quartets - there is a feeling that the composer is perhaps churning out a bit too fast, and yet it's quality music, but with a raw edge because of the composer's method of writing. The sometimes splintered tone of the works also adds to the impression of a stimulating, yet imperfect dialogue. The earlier quartets, especially No.3, I can imagine him having spent a little more time on - or at least, having more deeply considered the style in which it was written. The later works seem to flow with less of a concern about the aesthetic, and considering Rihm's mastery of this kind of writing, that isn't neccesserally a bad thing.
Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevna Pettersson on November 26, 2011, 10:11:03 PM
The pencil-paper analogy is a good way to descibe his late quartets - there is a feeling that the composer is perhaps churning out a bit too fast, and yet it's quality music, but with a raw edge because of the composer's method of writing. The sometimes splintered tone of the works also adds to the impression of a stimulating, yet imperfect dialogue. The earlier quartets, especially No.3, I can imagine him having spent a little more time on - or at least, having more deeply considered the style in which it was written. The later works seem to flow with less of a concern about the aesthetic, and considering Rihm's mastery of this kind of writing, that isn't neccesserally a bad thing.
He certainly has 'carved' out a niche for himself,... oh, I'm so bad. But yes, there is a feral, rough, imperfect quality that makes it perfect Rihm. Scratchin' fleas!! :o He's rabid!
.[asin]B0062LUEFC[/asin]
Coming next year. Looks exciting.
Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevna Pettersson on December 02, 2011, 10:57:21 PM
.[asin]B0062LUEFC[/asin]
Coming next year. Looks exciting.
Very interesting, but the below release on CPO from 2002 is more comprehensive, assuming the work listing for the new CD on the MDG site is accurate and complete. But I'll probably get it anyway since I wonder how Steffen Schleiermacher compares against Siegfried Mauser, the
de facto Rihm pianist.
[asin]B000084T7O[/asin]
Oh, silly me. I have and love the CPO disc, but lazily assumed the new one offered something different -_-
Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevna Pettersson on December 03, 2011, 12:15:47 AM
Oh, silly me. I have and love the CPO disc, but lazily assumed the new one offered something different -_-
Can you break it down for me? What's Rihm's work like in this combination? I don't recall him working much with the cello in a chamber setting? Isn't there also am old Wergo release that has
Kolchis,
Dritte Musik, etc.,...?
How many Violin Concertos does Rihm have, anyhow?
Quote from: snyprrr on December 03, 2011, 07:05:01 AM
Can you break it down for me? What's Rihm's work like in this combination? I don't recall him working much with the cello in a chamber setting? Isn't there also am old Wergo release that has Kolchis, Dritte Musik, etc.,...?
How many Violin Concertos does Rihm have, anyhow?
He has a lot of string trio/piano trio-based works involving cello (although with this composer you need a PHd to work out what there is). Musik für drei Streicher (recorded at least twice on Kairos and CPO) stands out due to its duration - enough to not require a coupling on disc.
There are at least 3 VCs, Gesungene Zeit, Dritte Musik (I know it from Hänssler not Wergo) and Lichtzwang (Hänssler). I haven't heard the new Mutter disc - doesn't that have some other ones?
I finally actually checked the tracklistrings (a considerable effort for somebody as evidently lazy as myself):
CPO disc:Phantom und Eskapade
Antlitz
Violin Sonata
Hekton
MDG disc:Phantom und Eskapade
Antlitz
Nachstudie
The interesting thing is that I don't recall the CPO disc being all that long? About 45 mins or something? So either the MDG is tiny or the Nachstudie is enormous. I recall the CPO disc being... fairly typical Rihm, really. I am unsure whether I would consider the works average or special because I LOVE violin sonatas so I can't really be ojective. It's just my Rihm in my favourite form, delivering what I want to hear.
Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevna Pettersson on December 03, 2011, 08:26:58 AM
He has a lot of string trio/piano trio-based works involving cello (although with this composer you need a PHd to work out what there is). Musik für drei Streicher (recorded at least twice on Kairos and CPO) stands out due to its duration - enough to not require a coupling on disc.
There are at least 3 VCs, Gesungene Zeit, Dritte Musik (I know it from Hänssler not Wergo) and Lichtzwang (Hänssler). I haven't heard the new Mutter disc - doesn't that have some other ones?
Lichtes Spiel is the one VC on that disc, and I'd say the strongest of Rihm's works thus far for that combination.
Quote
The interesting thing is that I don't recall the CPO disc being all that long? About 45 mins or something? So either the MDG is tiny or the Nachstudie is enormous. I recall the CPO disc being... fairly typical Rihm, really. I am unsure whether I would consider the works average or special because I LOVE violin sonatas so I can't really be ojective. It's just my Rihm in my favourite form, delivering what I want to hear.
Nachstudie is for solo piano, and if I recall correctly, just shy of 30 minutes. It's a further development of the material used in the piano concerto
sphere: interesting stuff that plays very much with the resonance of the piano body, but I would regard it as less compelling than its source concerto (which I think of as one of Rihm's strongest works).
Oh, I see - thank you. The MDG disc doesn't look particularly useful :\
Btw, thank you for the pointers for those stronger pieces. With the composer it can be a pain to sort through and after a while I blank and just enjoy everything equally for being in some general "Rihm-y" style. I'm so lazy ;)
Can we all now be thankful that I didn't name this Thread the 'Rihm Job'? ;) :o ;D 8)
I was looking over the Morphonie, and Sub-Kontur & Dis-Kontur. Does anyone have a preference on the latter two pieces, Hanssler, or ColLegno?
Besides that concertos disc, this would seem to be the way to go to start? Looks that way,... haha, let's just mark them off the list! ;)
Quote from: snyprrr on December 04, 2011, 05:09:34 PM
I was looking over the Morphonie, and Sub-Kontur & Dis-Kontur. Does anyone have a preference on the latter two pieces, Hanssler, or ColLegno?
Besides that concertos disc, this would seem to be the way to go to start? Looks that way,... haha, let's just mark them off the list! ;)
I am definitely on the verge of a Rihm-a-thon. What should be my FIRST orchestral disc? (all I have is the old Mutter, and the very first Abbado disc with
Depart)
Morphonie 2cd(Hannsler)
Dis/Sub-Kontur (Hanssler)
Dis/Sub-Kontur (ColLegno)
concertos disc (Hanssler)
I guess I'm leaning towards the Morphonie and the ColLegno. What say you?
Quote from: toucan on December 05, 2011, 04:34:37 PM
Just released, this neat meditation for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, Konzert in Einem Satz. It is performed by Tanja Tetzlaff, who is the sister of the violinist Christian Tetzlaff. And at first you might think it is played by Christian, as the Cello is kept on a rather high pitch. A recording of the world premiere, too - it is not yet known if people like Truls Mork wiill give us seconds. They should. The piece is paired with a composition by Ernst Toch (1887-1964); I'll let the initiates figure out si c'est du toc. Ha ha.
And as a perhaps rather unexpected note, the often high-floating solo line with its object lessons in clarity reflect the nature of the commission: a work designed for Stephen Isserlis' cello style, and reflecting his and Rihm's shared love of Schumann's music.
Quote from: snyprrr on December 16, 2011, 07:41:43 AM
I am definitely on the verge of a Rihm-a-thon. What should be my FIRST orchestral disc? (all I have is the old Mutter, and the very first Abbado disc with Depart)
Morphonie 2cd(Hannsler)
Dis/Sub-Kontur (Hanssler)
Dis/Sub-Kontur (ColLegno)
concertos disc (Hanssler)
I guess I'm leaning towards the Morphonie and the ColLegno. What say you?
Well, I have all of the above. I would say you can't go wrong with the Hanssler. My first on that series was the Morphonie/Klangbeschreibung, which is worthy of many many repeated listenings. I haven't yet dug into the Col Legno.
Quote from: petrarch on December 16, 2011, 03:55:59 PM
Well, I have all of the above. I would say you can't go wrong with the Hanssler. My first on that series was the Morphonie/Klangbeschreibung, which is worthy of many many repeated listenings. I haven't yet dug into the Col Legno.
As I'm pouring over Amazon, I'm finding the timings of Rihm's pieces daunting. Single tracks lasting 30-40mins. almost give me Pettersson-itis, haha. (I'll say I don't mind long music, but I looove when the company cuts the movement into pieces for ease of consumption!)
Rihm's discography can be kind of maddening! So much...Thanks! haha
Quote from: petrarch on December 16, 2011, 03:55:59 PM
Well, I have all of the above. I would say you can't go wrong with the Hanssler. My first on that series was the Morphonie/Klangbeschreibung, which is worthy of many many repeated listenings. I haven't yet dug into the Col Legno.
I'm afraid I haven't made any headway in getting a new Rihm cd. Through my samples listening, I happened upon the
Verwandlungen. The review claims this is more in Rihm's neo-Viennese vein, and the reviewer hints at a little disappoinment in Rihm's apparent conservatism here. But I think I could use a break from all the angst, and these pieces might be just what I need.
Do you (anyone) have them? Are they like ghostly Viennese recollections, mellower than Rihm's usual,... perhaps like a less sarcastic Schnittke? I could really use some creepy neo-Romantic Viennese corpse music.
Quote from: snyprrr on December 28, 2011, 07:40:03 AM
Do you (anyone) have them? Are they like ghostly Viennese recollections, mellower than Rihm's usual,... perhaps like a less sarcastic Schnittke? I could really use some creepy neo-Romantic Viennese corpse music.
See here: http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,11597.msg523338.html#msg523338
Quote from: petrarch on December 28, 2011, 04:04:53 PM
See here: http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,11597.msg523338.html#msg523338
Quote from: toucan on December 28, 2011, 01:53:21 PM
The first and second Verwandlung are mellower, less dramatic than the third & fourth; they are conducted by Christian Arming, who may be a mellower conductor than Matthias Pintscher, who conducts the latter two. If the first two weren't so rich in sound and imagination, superficial listeners would tag them as minimalists. Both develop organically, like living creatures. There is a climax near the end of Verwandlungen I that Rihm attains throuh remarkably simple means: percussion, percussion reduced to what could be simple drums As always with Rihm you never know for sure if he uses occasional returns to tonality, to enrich atonality, or if he uses atonal means, for purposes of creating a superior tonality. But you can be sure he is one of the few among the still (not for long :-[) younger composers who produce consistently pleasing work.
Though there are passing reminiscences in all these pieces, they are brief, well-transformed into something that is distinctive Rihm, & hard to spot if you do not give this music careful attention.
Thanks guys.
Hey! Have you seen Rihm's new Catalogue at the Universal Editions site? 108 pages :o
I'm just the kind of person to go along with such a cockeyed notion! ;)
When was the Sonata for Violin and Piano on this disc (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000084T7O?ie=UTF8&tag=3636363-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B000084T7O) composed? It doesn't appear to be listed in Universal Edition's catalogue of Rihm's works, so I'm thinking this is some very early effort, but it would be good to know the exact year.
Quote from: CRCulver on January 21, 2012, 08:04:16 PM
When was the Sonata for Violin and Piano on this disc (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000084T7O?ie=UTF8&tag=3636363-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B000084T7O) composed? It doesn't appear to be listed in Universal Edition's catalogue of Rihm's works, so I'm thinking this is some very early effort, but it would be good to know the exact year.
1969, though if I remember correctly it was revised and retitled
Eine Violinsonate in the mid-1970s.
On Thursday March 22 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern German Radio is doing a 2 1/2 hour program of Rihm's music to celebrate his 60th birth year. It looks like all the recordings are from live concerts with some going back as much 27 years. You can hear it on SR2. (http://www.sr-online.de/sr2/1356/inc-2012_03_22.html) Or set your recorder and enjoy it anytime.
Hanssler's New Rihm Edition!!:
http://www.amazon.com/Uber-die-Linie-II-CollArco/dp/B006ZV6XB8/ref=sr_1_37?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1332729669&sr=1-37
The Widmanns playing yet MORE :o concertos for clarinet and violin! What's that?,... 'Fifth Music'? for Violin & Orchestra?,haha.
You bet after this release we're having a Rihm concerto-off! ;)
I just accidentally ordered the 'Morphonie' disc; will report, though,... it's an accident because I've already set up so many expectations,... I mean, these are longer works... well, anyway, it made sense at the time. :-[ ;D I just wasn't trying to get a Rihm-bug seeing his discography is only going to expand.
Has anyone got a grip on breaking down Rihm's stylistic periods? We're starting to get a lot more current material, when I'm pretty well stuck in the early eighties with Rihm,... and then there is an interesting period surrounding a bunch of works later, including the infamous 'Nono Period', haha, which I have yet to sample (CRCulver mentions a CPO disc negatively here).
I was so taken by the Dusapin discs, and thankful that there were only two, and now, here is Rihm, scrappy, and proliferating all over the place, infecting so many levels of interest, how CAN one resist such temptation? :'(
Quote from: snyprrr on March 25, 2012, 06:53:17 PM
http://www.amazon.com/Uber-die-Linie-II-CollArco/dp/B006ZV6XB8/ref=sr_1_37?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1332729669&sr=1-37
Programming-wise, that's a bit of a bummer. Short playing time, and the
Uber die Linie II is the same recording as on
[asin]B00005LAHJ[/asin]
I remember it as being one of Rihm's weaker compositions and one of his earlier works in the more mellow style that seems to predominate now. The long melodic line for clarinet was rather less striking than I'd hoped--though Jorg Widmann plays it superbly--and the orchestral accompaniment did often feel a bit dutiful. I should bring it back out some time to see my impression of the work has improved in its absence.
Quote from: edward on March 26, 2012, 05:01:32 AM
Programming-wise, that's a bit of a bummer. Short playing time, and the Uber die Linie II is the same recording as on
[asin]B00005LAHJ[/asin]
I remember it as being one of Rihm's weaker compositions and one of his earlier works in the more mellow style that seems to predominate now. The long melodic line for clarinet was rather less striking than I'd hoped--though Jorg Widmann plays it superbly--and the orchestral accompaniment did often feel a bit dutiful. I should bring it back out some time to see my impression of the work has improved in its absence.
arrgh! >:D
ok, WHO got that Tutuguri VI cd on Ebay? >:D
How do you rate Tutuguri? I'm intrigued.
If you like drums and more drums and more drums you will love Tutuguri...I found that it was not for me. However Schwarzer und Roter Tanz which is a section of Tutuguri and is about 18 minutes long is one of my favorite Rihm pieces.
Quote from: snyprrr on March 26, 2012, 05:37:55 PM
ok, WHO got that Tutuguri VI cd on Ebay? >:D
How do you rate Tutuguri? I'm intrigued.
Highly.
Here is my article on the work:
http://home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/rihm_articles.htm
That's a handy collection; most of the works are early ones but only some have been recorded, often floating around in multi-composer collections.
Quote from: James on March 31, 2012, 08:40:38 AM
Hey Al .. anymore Stockhausen essays in the works? Enjoy reading them ,,
Hi James,
yes, I am currently working on Luzifer's Abschied (from Samstag). It is in the last editorial stages (Jerome Kohl is my editor), and I have already uploaded the auxiliary material (formula excerpts). I am glad you enjoy my essays.
In terms of listening though, I am now totally into the incredible genius of Haydn's piano sonatas. The apparent ease and quality of invention, as well as the fluidity of structures, are just phenomenal. After my session this evening I was like: Holy sh*t!
But then I was listening to Piano Piece XIII (from Samstag) by Stockhausen from the 3-CD set of piano pieces (Stockhausen Verlag 56), which is musically worlds apart, and I was also like: Holy sh*t!
Quote from: Al Moritz on April 01, 2012, 05:28:04 PM
Hi James,
yes, I am currently working on Luzifer's Abschied (from Samstag). It is in the last editorial stages (Jerome Kohl is my editor), and I have already uploaded the auxiliary material (formula excerpts). I am glad you enjoy my essays.
In terms of listening though, I am now totally into the incredible genius of Haydn's piano sonatas. The apparent ease and quality of invention, as well as the fluidity of structures, are just phenomenal. After my session this evening I was like: Holy sh*t!
But then I was listening to Piano Piece XIII (from Samstag) by Stockhausen from the 3-CD set of piano pieces (Stockhausen Verlag 56), which is musically worlds apart, and I was also like: Holy sh*t!
Al I am smiling because I can remember when you thought music ended with Mahler!
Who's playing Haydn's sonatas?
Quote from: UB on April 01, 2012, 05:44:54 PM
Al I am smiling because I can remember when you thought music ended with Mahler!
Hehe, Bill, well it wasn't that bad. I thought after Bartok and Hindemith the only great thing was Schnittke (still a fan though, enormously).
QuoteWho's playing Haydn's sonatas?
John McCabe (a composer himself) on Decca. Great playing of the entire collection on 12 CDs for just 65 bucks. Can't go wrong with that.
We now return you to your normally scheduled Thread. ;)
Quote from: snyprrr on March 25, 2012, 06:53:17 PM
Hanssler's New Rihm Edition!!:
[asin]B006ZV6XB8[/asin]
http://www.amazon.com/Uber-die-Linie-II-CollArco/dp/B006ZV6XB8/ref=sr_1_37?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1332729669&sr=1-37
The Widmanns playing yet MORE :o concertos for clarinet and violin! What's that?,... 'Fifth Music'? for Violin & Orchestra?,haha.
Quite listenable, though not a pair of works I would imagine myself listening to very often.
Quote from: petrarch on April 10, 2012, 05:19:17 PM
Quite listenable, though not a pair of works I would imagine myself listening to very often.
If I'm assuming you own all 5 Rihm VCs... wait, only four are recorded right?...what do you think of each? I haven't heard a word about
Dritte Musik.
Quote from: snyprrr on April 10, 2012, 08:27:20 PM
If I'm assuming you own all 5 Rihm VCs... wait, only four are recorded right?...what do you think of each? I haven't heard a word about Dritte Musik.
Which one is the fifth? 1.
Lichtzwang, 2.
Gesungene Zeit, 3.
Dritte Musik, 4.
Coll'Arco, 5...
Lichtes Spiel? All of these were recorded.
Dritte Musik is wonderful, in my opinion the best of his settings for violin and orchestra. The captivating interplay with percussion, the spare and sparse writing all come out quite well. Reminds me of a fragmented
Jagden und Formen.
Quote from: snyprrr on April 10, 2012, 08:27:20 PM
what do you think of each?
As I said,
Dritte Musik is my favorite.
Listening to
Coll'Arco again, I find it long-winded and the vibrato is very annoying. It didn't do anything for me this time.
Gesungene Zeit is like a long meditation for violin, where the instrument's tone is the main focus. Very very good.
Lichtzwang is typical 1970s Rihm, need to listen to it more since I seem to remember I liked it more 5 years ago when that CD came out.
Quote from: petrarch on April 13, 2012, 05:29:15 PM
As I said, Dritte Musik is my favorite.
Listening to Coll'Arco again, I find it long-winded and the vibrato is very annoying. It didn't do anything for me this time.
Gesungene Zeit is like a long meditation for violin, where the instrument's tone is the main focus. Very very good.
Lichtzwang is typical 1970s Rihm, need to listen to it more since I seem to remember I liked it more 5 years ago when that CD came out.
Hey, thanks.
Perhaps I was confused. I thought there was a 'VC 1' (unrecorded) from the '70s?? But, that would make 'six'... huh?, what was I thinking?
Well, my 'Morphonie' disc either got lost in the mail... sooooo, I'm back where I started, which is actually a good thing. I had totally tripped a CDCDCD wire with this Rihm discography,... I was going to go on a Rihm-O-Thon I surely couldn't afford.
Here's one just removed from the pile of CDs waiting to be listened to:
[asin]B007F46EUE[/asin]
Still only on track 2, Fantasie (1968), and after the opening track Bann, Nachtschwärmerei (1980), I am utterly mesmerized. I wasn't prepared for this; like what I said about Rihm's writing for accordion on Fetzen, this is most assuredly how Rihm would sound if he wrote electronic or computer music.
Edit: Track 3, the first of three Fantasien for organ he wrote when he was 15, is a refreshing change, the melody eliciting images of a medieval band discordantly playing their dance tunes.
Quote from: petrarch on August 21, 2012, 01:00:29 PM
Here's one just removed from the pile of CDs waiting to be listened to:
[asin]B007F46EUE[/asin]
Still only on track 2, Fantasie (1968), and after the opening track Bann, Nachtschwärmerei (1980), I am utterly mesmerized. I wasn't prepared for this; like what I said about Rihm's writing for accordion on Fetzen, this is most assuredly how Rihm would sound if he wrote electronic or computer music.
Edit: Track 3, the first of three Fantasien for organ he wrote when he was 15, is a refreshing change, the melody eliciting images of a medieval band discordantly playing their dance tunes.
You've had it since April?? :o
I could have sworn there was a newish Rihm cd that I neglected to mention, and no one has yet mentioned? Hold on...
I guess not. :-[
It's been too summery for me to listen to Rihm right now, not that I have any 'Summer Music' by Rihm. ;) ;D
Quote from: petrarch on August 21, 2012, 01:00:29 PM
[asin]B007F46EUE[/asin]
Sinfoniae I (1971) is certainly broader in scope than the earlier works in this CD, and after the bombastic opening we are treated to the typical assortment of clusters, loud outbursts and quieter, introspective passages. The parallels with electronic and computer music continue, with bits that sound uncannily like tape loops, random sample & hold filtered tones, metallic and percussive FM timbres. All in all quite nice treat for the ears.
The early
Contemplatio (1967) is probably the least interesting work in here, mostly consisting of single notes in step-wise motion against sustained chords. Like the opening work, it sounds somewhat procedurally generated, but here the rigidity of the time grid, coupled with a narrower timbral range, makes this work monotonous. Still the 3 minutes it lasts makes it a sort of intermission between two big works on this CD: the foregoing
Sinfoniae I and
Siebengestalt, a duo for organ and tamtam.
Unfortunately, despite the inclusion of a tamtam, I didn't find
Siebengestalt (1974) to be as deeply interesting as the other pieces. For my ears, the quietest, sparse moments are the best, particularly the recurring figure that opens the work and frames denser, loud-tamtam-crash-announced sections. There is a clear succession of arcs as the work evolves, with a long, organic-like growth in the middle of the work, that ends with a series of massive chords before a long silence; the final section is then announced by way of another loud, massive chord, with a simultaneous tamtam crash, and abruptly the quieter opening figure returns once more, this time in a more minimalistic fashion. In any case, it is still a worthwhile listen; perhaps it will grow on me after some more listening.
Another one from the pile:
[asin]B006OGSS0S[/asin]
I am not a big fan of choral music, especially that for unaccompanied choir. Therefore it should not be surprising that Sieben Passions-Texte, written between 2001 and 2006 (i.e. from the latter, calmer, more sedately romantic Rihm) is not high on my list of favored works. The slow movement and smoother transitions between harmonies doesn't pique my interest enough to overcome the difficulty I have with vocal works. An aspect that I found interesting was that at times it felt like I was listening to medieval and renaissance music refracted through a contemporary language prism; very often, it was really like early music, but it ultimately ended up veering off in the "wrong" direction and sounding not quite satisfactory.
Astralis, from 2001, is a slightly different matter. The addition of a violoncello, just punctuating the lines very softly every now and then, adds quite a bit of interest to the otherwise static vocal textures. It reminded me of Vigilia, the exception to the rule that I generally don't care for vocal music, especially from the later Rihm. The contemplative nature of Astralis makes it much more appealing to me than the Passions-Texte.
Fragmenta passionis, from 1968, is more angular and more diverse than the other two works on this CD. It extends the timbral palette with whispering, glissandi, interjections and other rhythmic effects that remind me of--though certainly not as extreme as--Ligeti's Aventures or Nouvelles Aventures of half a decade earlier. Quite a worthwhile work, and certainly a great achievement of a 16-year-old composer.
And another one:
[asin]B000023ZA4[/asin]
This is probably the only work in which Rihm used electronic sounds, prerecorded on tape and gathered from processed instrumental and vocal material.
I first heard it live sometime in the late 90s in tape-only form, along a video projection, when it was called Séraphin-Spuren. I didn't like it at all then; the sound projection was abysmal and utterly unpleasant.
I am happy to report that this recording is quite good, and it is interesting to see how Rihm meshes the electronic sounds on tape with the instrumental sounds of the ensemble. This is a work full of menace, it is dark and mysterious. It has the requisite contrasts between quieter, suspenseful passages--accomplished by floating sonorities from the harps, double basses and percussion accompanied by atmospherics from the tape, generally made up of sounds processed beyond recognition and low brass sounds transposed to the extreme lower regions of the spectrum--and louder, incisive ones, made up of outbursts and pressing notes from the trombones, with the ensemble joining in and out, and two extensive elaborations for the whole ensemble--one starting halfway through, with a fantastic play between marimba, harps and double basses, finished off by a long crescendo on cymbals; the other immediately following it, culminating in a frenzy of percussion playing, backed by the vocal sound material on tape.
The liner notes offer a diagram with the structure of the work, in which the interplay between the instruments and the tape is clear: the work is structured in two layers, one with the ensemble, the other with the tape; the instruments play a sequence of five 'strophes', aside from brief opening and closing sections; the tape layer is divided into a sequence of five 'sections'. There is no alignment between the instrumental strophes and the tape sections, nor are they played contiguously--there are portions with no overlap at all between the layers, leading to tape-only or ensemble-only 'solos'. There are also four 'interjections', which are in essence inserts that consist of 'solos' (three tape-, one ensemble-) over which the opposing layer interjects material.
I have heard this CD three times today, and it is quite a worthwhile listen.
There's a new Rihm disc (http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572730) out on Naxos: Violin and Piano Works. Most (or all) of the pieces have already been recorded, however.
Quote from: CRCulver on November 02, 2012, 02:10:04 AM
There's a new Rihm disc (http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572730) out on Naxos: Violin and Piano Works. Most (or all) of the pieces have already been recorded, however.
Looks like that CD contains the only recording of
Über die Linie VII... The rest is available elsewhere.
Quote from: James on November 02, 2012, 05:48:20 AM
His enormous output and bewildering variety of styles and
sounds make Rihm a true original, and worth getting to know
How much of Rihm's
Oeuvre do you know? 0, 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100%? :)
Quote from: James on November 02, 2012, 06:05:21 AM
:)
Did you happen to hit that all-Stockhausen concert at ATH, or was it cancelled because of Sandy?
It was cancelled.
Rihm's String Quartet No. 13 with the Arditti String Quartet:
http://www.youtube.com/v/KAtIDwg85nA
Rihm in conversation with Lucas Fels about his string quartets:
http://www.youtube.com/v/lIsATkFMv2I
I've known about Rihm for a long time but only recently have I begun to listen to his music in earnest. I like what I've heard so far, these especially:
[asin]B004EHLMQG[/asin]
[asin]B006ZV6XB8[/asin]
[asin]B000O5B514[/asin]
[asin]B0000630QB[/asin]
Thanks everyone for contributions to this most useful thread; I actually have what I thought was a nice chunk of Rihm recordings, and this thread has presented one right have another that I don't know. The man looks entirely too cheerful and impish to be such a runaway workaholic. Ah! but maybe that is the source of his joy. I wonder what kind of chair he composes in.
There was some discussion a while back about two discs with violin/piano music (CPO and MDG), with a passing appreciation of the CPO by Lethe-Sara. Has anyone had time to listen to the brand new Naxos disc, which is much longer than at least that (CPO) disc? Is it worth having?
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61%2BMndW4mrL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Rihm: COMPLETE MUSIC FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO [Yang/Rimmer - Naxos, 2012]
And who on earth could release a Rihm disc with 'complete' in the title?
Has anyone managed to hear Rihm's Symphony No. 3 from 1977? I'm looking for a recording so if someone can point me to how to get it I would appreciate it.
Since this thread has been "bumped".......
The only work of Rihm's that I've heard is his Violin Concerto Gesunges Zeit (performed by Mutter/Levine and coupled with their excellent performance of the Berg VC). I haven't heard it in a while, but I remember rather liking it. For some reason, I've never bothered exploring his other music, much of which has been recorded by Hanssler Classic. Do those more familiar with his music have any recommendations for me on where to start exploring it? Thanks in advance. :)
Quote from: kyjo on August 25, 2013, 09:58:56 AM
Since this thread has been "bumped".......
The only work of Rihm's that I've heard is his Violin Concerto Gesunges Zeit (performed by Mutter/Levine and coupled with their excellent performance of the Berg VC). I haven't heard it in a while, but I remember rather liking it. For some reason, I've never bothered exploring his other music, much of which has been recorded by Hanssler Classic. Do those more familiar with his music have any recommendations for me on where to start exploring it? Thanks in advance. :)
I'd recommend these as all being strong works, exciting, well played/recorded, and representative of his style(s):
Rihm: Dis-Kontur / Lichtzwang / Sub-Kontur:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VQ54KC/ref=s9_simh_gw_p340_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=020MTYW2ZTSGBVVAR96M&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1389517282&pf_rd_i=507846
Symphonies Nos. 1 And 2 / Nachtwach / Vers Une Symphonie Fleuve III / Raumauge:
http://www.amazon.com/Rihm-W-Symphonies-Nachtwach-Symphonie/dp/B002VVZ7KY/ref=pd_sim_dmusic_a_2
La musique creuse le ciel - Über-Schrift:
http://www.amazon.com/Rihm-musique-creuse-ciel-%C3%9Cber-Schrift/dp/B00DYP3GJA/ref=sr_1_13?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1377459769&sr=1-13&keywords=rihm
It does require patient, focused listening. For example, in Dis-Kontur, there are moments of extremely loud percussion that seem too long and I get worn out but just then it switches to something beautiful. I posted this another forum that I think helps show his place in Germanic tradition:
There are parts of Henze and Rihm's output where their connection to the tradition of Beethoven and Mahler is clear. To me, each of these excerpts represent the same artistic effort of expanding harmonic vocabulary within a vividly dramatic way… they seem to be saying the same thing in their time and in their own way which indicates a connection, an influence.
Please listen to the following links for about 45 seconds each:
Beethoven: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF1KRUYiUjM&feature=player_detailpage#t=660s
Mahler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ikTni7DPROM#t=499s
Rihm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=t_ClwNU1XyU#t=101s
I'm not just pointing to these excerpts as just having superficial similarities but notice the same dramatic instinct – the near total silence before the devastating (within their time period) harmonic crashes; the thickness of the orchestration, the transitional purposes of these dramatic moments. These composers are dramatists. When I first heard the Rihm symphony, this combination of pathos and harmonic intensity sounded familiar but also new just as the Mahler did to his contemporaries and the same with Beethoven. It sounds shocking but somewhat approachable because it has an established framework from which it drew from.
Many thanks, relm1! :)
(http://i1274.photobucket.com/albums/y434/8ve/Music/rihm_mit_biere_zps700485c7.jpg)
Lachenmannen
Da Wolf, feelin' hilarious....and still such a large glass of beer to finish. Unfortunately no YT of schlager-beltin' dudes.
Quote from: Octave on November 07, 2013, 03:53:34 AM
(http://i1274.photobucket.com/albums/y434/8ve/Music/rihm_mit_biere_zps700485c7.jpg)
Lachenmannen
Da Wolf, feelin' hilarious....and still such a large glass of beer to finish. Unfortunately no YT of schlager-beltin' dudes.
I bet he's a fun person to be around. I've seen many interviews with him and he's always quite humble and humorous. His music, however, offers a different image altogether. It sounds nothing like the man looks.
In some ways it seems funny that Rihm and Lachnemann are such good friends. One's highly prolific, the other is the exact opposite. One's clearly a Romantic at heart; the other writes music as a critique of his cultural inheritance. Yet both write music that sounds completely and utterly German.
Quote from: edward on November 07, 2013, 05:49:03 AM
In some ways it seems funny that Rihm and Lachnemann are such good friends. One's highly prolific, the other is the exact opposite. One's clearly a Romantic at heart; the other writes music as a critique of his cultural inheritance. Yet both write music that sounds completely and utterly German.
I have one of my phantom memories of hearing about and perhaps reading excerpts (in English translation) of a 'defense'/appreciation of Lachenmann's music, by Rihm. Some cursory searches just now are not calling this document up, but if it's available in English, I would like to read it.
Maybe it was no single document but a general stance he took in the press for a while. My memory was that Rihm was doing this when Lachenmann's music had a much more [??] dangerous reputation. (My Berliner friend told me about the turn of the century, when all the punk kids would come out for the rare night of Neue Musik Night at the opera house or wherever.)
Since Rihm has been under my radar more recently, I bought this a few nights ago:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KX1hLmLuL.jpg)
Has anyone here heard this? I read that this is his 'salute' to Brahms or something to that effect.
Any Rihm news?... discoveries?... new thoughts?
I've been spending some time with most of the Rihm quartets this week (I don't have recordings of 1, 2, 11 or 13), and I'm coming to the conclusion that I've rather underrated this cycle. In particular, what's impressed me is how different many of the quartets are: expressionist/neo-Romantic in the 3rd; consciously epic in scale and momentum in the 5th and 6th; textural and experimental in the 7th; withdrawn and introspective in the 8th and 12th; quirkily humorous in the 10th.
It's been a fun ride; guess I need to pick up the Wergo recording of the long-delayed 11th. Meanwhile, hopefully the Ardittis will record the 13th soon.
Quote from: edward on April 23, 2014, 06:45:48 PM
I've been spending some time with most of the Rihm quartets this week (I don't have recordings of 1, 2, 11 or 13), and I'm coming to the conclusion that I've rather underrated this cycle. In particular, what's impressed me is how different many of the quartets are: expressionist/neo-Romantic in the 3rd; consciously epic in scale and momentum in the 5th and 6th; textural and experimental in the 7th; withdrawn and introspective in the 8th and 12th; quirkily humorous in the 10th.
It's been a fun ride; guess I need to pick up the Wergo recording of the long-delayed 11th. Meanwhile, hopefully the Ardittis will record the 13th soon.
I thought No.9 ("Number Nine"!) was quite different. It has some interesting harmonic work in the first mvmt. No.11 sounds full-blown Romantic to me.
No.7 seemed interesting, No.6 is very long...
I do like the "paper" bit in No.8- a wonderful sound in the middle of an SQ.
I really think we could use a second Cycle though...
I found this Lieder album unexpectedly good. Clare Lesser's vibrato-less voice is very pure and beautiful. The songs may not be melodious in a traditional sense, but there are many tuneful moments, rarely screaming or screeching, unlike typical avant-garde vocal pieces. The piano accompaniment is occasionally dissonance or atonal, but the vocal is so clean that it does not sound unnatural at all. Mostly the music is quiet and contemplative except for some climaxes. I believe that the performers are fitted for the works very well.
Wolfgang Rihm Lieder - Clare Lesser, David Lesser
[asin]B00016W86M[/asin]
Quote from: torut on October 17, 2014, 09:08:06 PM
I found this Lieder album unexpectedly good. Clare Lesser's vibrato-less voice is very pure and beautiful. The songs may not be melodious in a traditional sense, but there are many tuneful moments, rarely screaming or screeching, unlike typical avant-garde vocal pieces. The piano accompaniment is occasionally dissonance or atonal, but the vocal is so clean that it does not sound unnatural at all. Mostly the music is quiet and contemplative except for some climaxes. I believe that the performers are fitted for the works very well.
Wolfgang Rihm Lieder - Clare Lesser, David Lesser
[asin]B00016W86M[/asin]
Modern Lieder- scary!!! You make a good case for the rainy afternoon, though! ;)
I've also been listening to Rhim's lieder recently, but on the follwing cd, which i found quite good.
[asin]B0051T1KOK[/asin]
Both those lieder CDs are quite good and thoroughly enjoyable. They are both worth it, especially comparing the tenor vs soprano performances of the Heiner Müller cycle.
I listened to
Ende der Handschrift of the Prégardien/Mauser album on the Col Legno web site (http://www.col-legno.com/de/katalog/gesamtverzeichnis/3_liederzyklen), and I too think it is very good. Prégardien's voice is smooth and comforting. Yes, it's quite interesting to hear the tenor version (original) and the soprano version of the work.
Quote from: snyprrr on October 19, 2014, 07:39:00 AM
Modern Lieder- scary!!!
That's what I was afraid of but I was immediately captivated when I heard some audio samples of the Lessers' album. :)
WOLFGANG RIHM, LUIGI NONO - PASSION TEXTS - James Weeks, Exaudi (AECD 1441) (http://www.outhere-music.com/en/albums/passion-texts-aecd-1441)
[asin]B00N2TYP84[/asin]
Volcal works of Rihm and Nono.
Will be released on November 18, 2014.
Rihm has won this year's Grawemeyer Award for In-Schrift 2.
http://www.courier-journal.com/story/entertainment/music/2014/11/30/german-composers-work-wins-grawemeyer-award/19702845/
Edward have you heard this piece and if so is it like the 1995 IN-SCHRIFT 2?
Haven't heard it. I sort of hope it's not like the original IN-SCHRIFT because I thought it was rather weak...
I've heard In-Schrift II... can't say I remember a damn thing about it. I'll go back and listen. I've tried to keep tabs on the Grawemeyer winners in recent years.
http://5against4.com/2014/12/07/wolfgang-rihm-in-schrift-ii-world-premiere/
Here it is from our friend Simon Cummings at 5-against-4.
Quote from: lescamil on December 07, 2014, 07:17:17 AM
http://5against4.com/2014/12/07/wolfgang-rihm-in-schrift-ii-world-premiere/
Here it is from our friend Simon Cummings at 5-against-4.
Yes indeed - enjoy! i'll be interested to hear if esteemed forum members rate it as highly as i do. Sometimes the Grawemeyer choices seem a bit peculiar to me - but not this time.
Been listening to Rihm's Seraphin-Symphonie from the 2011 Donaueschingen collection on Neos, and liking it a lot. It's one of Rihm's "palimpsest" pieces, where he essentially writes a symphony for full orchestra over the top of a lengthy ensemble work, but the clashes and contrasts work very well, and the more radical original music helps counterbalance the more conservative symphonic writing.
Coming out early in the new year, volume 7 of the Haenssler Rihm series.
[asin]B018GFL4IM[/asin]
Good to see a commercial recording of Two Other Movements (though I'm not sure about Norrington as conductor in this piece); the 1980s piece Abkehr is also a first recording.
Quote from: edward on December 24, 2015, 07:28:53 AM
Coming out early in the new year, volume 7 of the Haenssler Rihm series.
[asin]B018GFL4IM[/asin]
Good to see a commercial recording of Two Other Movements (though I'm not sure about Norrington as conductor in this piece); the 1980s piece Abkehr is also a first recording.
I'm stuck on Rihm... too much available, and I haven't checked out any of the Hansslers, though, I'd probably go for the one with 'Styx..." on it. Also I was interested in the "piano concerto", is it 'Sphere'? Yea, he's just too prolific now for me... I have:
1) Arditti disc: SQs 3/5/8
2) Mutter w/Berg DG
3) Fremde szenen(?) Piano Trios on CPO
4) String Trios on CPO
5) SQ 4 on EMI -ABQ
6) one vocal piece on that 'Wein Modern/Abbado' disc
7) the big DG 20/21 release... what was it called?
So, I've really not got any orchestral or concertos, but, not much has seared my ears, so, mmmm,... eh?.... again, the two discs I mentioned would probably be where I'd go....
My claim that Boulez and Rihm didn't cross paths was wrong, it seems. Boulez conducted world premiere of Pol – Kolchis – Nucleus back in 1996 (according to the Universal Edition (http://www.universaledition.com/Wolfgang-Rihm/komponisten-und-werke/komponist/599/werk/4214) website).
Quote from: snyprrr on March 12, 2009, 08:35:40 PM
and i love his big forehead!
He's obviously the first step to the Outer Limits episode,
The Sixth Finger . . .
(http://www.classicalarchives.com/images/artists_cma/wp/8604.jpg) (http://movieactors.com/freeseframes-1026/OL-SixthFinger14.jpeg)
ORGAN MUSIC:
Already quite a few recordings. Haven't heard.
PIANO MUSIC:
In a nutshrell, there is one 3CD set out there touting 'Piano Music: 1966-2000' which has all the Klavierstucke, the 'Night' piece, and some short pieces. Rihm's Piano Music has not been received all that well, and most say not to bother here. From what I've heard, it's just kind of ugly and raw, but not really attractive, just... brrr, somewhat dreary German angst-rock, lol.
2 PIANO MUSIC:
The main "work" here is the one that is coupled with Bartok's Sonata, I think on Wergo or ColLegno. This work comes in a few guises ("Schrift" pieces), with different titles, on various CDs, but, like a lot of his output, it is based on the initial piece; I believe this is in the Nono phase, and isn't all that well received. I think there are also some Schubert inspired works for 2 Pianos, but I haven't explored. What I've heard so far is plink/plonk/silence in the Nono vein, - I don't like it...
PIANO CONCERTOS:
There's the concerto 'Sphere' on ColLegno, but CRC says the sound is bad 'live'. This piece is expanded to 2 Pianos in 'Sphere Within Sphere' on another Wergo disc. Then there are the piece pieces 'Notturno' and 'Capriccio' on the Kairos disc with the Arditti concerto. I think there might be a third, earlier Piano Concerto, under a guise, but I can't be sure.
no order:
Piano Concerto No.2 (1?) ...new.....
CON?CERTO! ........new.....
Sotto Voce: Notturno & Capriccio (Kairos)
Sphere (ColLg)
Sphere Within Sphere (2 Pianos) (Wergo)
Triple Concerto ..........new.............
VIOLIN & PIANO:
The big piece 'Antlitz'(?) seems to come from Rihm's Nono phase, which in this case doesn't do much for me. There appears to be THREE whole different recitals going on- MDG, CPO, and Naxos.
VIOLIN CONCERTOS:
1) 'Lichszwan'g(?) Hanssler......... the most Avant??..........
2) 'Gesungengd Zeit'(?) DG
3) 'Drittes Musik' Hanssler..........Avant??.............
4) 'Lichtes Spiel' DG Brahmsian??
5) 'Coll'Arco' Hanssler subdued Romantic Expressionist
6) Triple Concerto .........new.........
CELLO & PIANO:
It seems the main piece is, again, 'Antlitz', with the solo piece 'Uber der Line'(?) being the newer work. The latter piece comes in various guises for various instruments.
CELLO CONCERTOS:
(not in order)
1) Concerto in Einem Satz (CRC was ambivalent)
2) Doppelgesang (Double Concerto) (liked)
7) 'Monodram'
6) 'Styz und Lethe'
3) 'Uber de Linie'
4)Verzagabane (not right title) ............new...........
5) Triple Concerto
VIOLA:
Not finding music interest here. One Viola Concerto, and 'Uber die Linie XXX' for viola concerto.
'Morphonie' (Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra)
'CONCERTO' Dithyrambe (Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra) Arditti
DUOS:
There might be a small piece for 2 Violins on a various disc I have ('Compassion' Angel?) and there is a nother duo, 'Duomonolog' which features on one or two recitals. Also the 'Dyade'(?) from the 2nd Mutter disc.
STRING TRIO:
'Music for Three String Instruments'' is one of Rihm's best pieces*********************************
There is also a (actually two separate) very good "bass" String Trio; one of his best*********************************
PIANO TRIO:
The massive 'Fremde Szenen' is also one of Rihm's best works*********************************
CLARINET TRIO:
On a Jubal Trio disc. Haven't heard. 'Gesangeszene'
CLARINET:
'Vier Male'
CLARINET QUINTET
'Vier Studien fur Klarinette Quintett' 40mins.
Not much going on with other DUOS, but there is a Kairos CD of 'Trios', which, frankly, isn't all that. Also the disc of Kairos 'Chiffres'. Then the CPO 'Chiffres'.
Musik fur Oboe mit Orchestra
Musik fur Klarinette mit Orchestra
Uber de Linie (Clarinet Concerto)
Horn Concerto .................................new...........................
Marysas (Trumpet Concerto)
String Quartet No.1
String Quartet No.2
String Quartet No.3 'Im Innersten- 1976, one of the first flowerings of Rihm
String Quartet No.4- it's just a treat to have the ABQ play this- very agitated
String Quartet No.5 a high point
String Quartet No.6 'Blaubuch'- very noisy
String Quartet No.7 'Verunderungenen'(?)- I felt this to be one of the strongest and most provocative sonically
String Quartet No.8- maybe the highpoint?
String Quartet No.9 'Quartettsatz'
'Quartettstudie'
String Quartet No.10- twihm rompo smaller mvmts. surround a 'Battaglia' which is quite a Rihm romp
String Quartet No.12
String Quartet No.11 'Quartettstudie' 37mins.
String Quartet No.13- I like this the best of the last three
'Grave' 18mins.
'Epilog'
'Geste su Vedova'
'In Verbundenheit' 3:30
'Interscriptum' for Piano Quintet
'Superscriptum'
'Fetzen' Series (with Accordion)
'Et Lux' Vocal Quartet/String Quartet 60"
'Akt und Tag' Soprano/SQ
Quote from: snyprrr on May 11, 2016, 04:28:28 PM
ORGAN MUSIC:
Already quite a few recordings. Haven't heard.
'Ubennant IV' Organ & Orchestra
PIANO MUSIC:
In a nutshrell, there is one 3CD set out there touting 'Piano Music: 1966-2000' which has all the Klavierstucke, the 'Night' piece, and some short pieces. Rihm's Piano Music has not been received all that well, and most say not to bother here. From what I've heard, it's just kind of ugly and raw, but not really attractive, just... brrr, somewhat dreary German angst-rock, lol.
2 PIANO MUSIC:
The main "work" here is the one that is coupled with Bartok's Sonata, I think on Wergo or ColLegno. This work comes in a few guises ("Schrift" pieces), with different titles, on various CDs, but, like a lot of his output, it is based on the initial piece; I believe this is in the Nono phase, and isn't all that well received. I think there are also some Schubert inspired works for 2 Pianos, but I haven't explored.
'Mask' 2 Pianos
'Uber Schrift' 2 Pianos
'Schrift Um Schrift' 2 Pianos, 2 Percussion
'La Musique Cruese la Ciel'
'Sphere Within Sphere'
PIANO CONCERTOS:
There's the concerto 'Sphere' on ColLegno, but CRC says the sound is bad 'live'. This piece is expanded to 2 Pianos in 'Sphere Within Sphere' on another Wergo disc. Then there are the piece pieces 'Notturno' and 'Capriccio' on the Kairos disc with the Arditti concerto. I think there might be a third, earlier Piano Concerto, under a guise, but I can't be sure.
'Sphere'
[Sphere Within Sphere[
'Notturno-Capriccio'
'CON PIANO? CERTO!'
Piano Concerto No.2
(Piano) Trio Concerto (2014)
VIOLIN & PIANO:
The big piece 'Antlitz'(?) seems to come from Rihm's Nono phase, which in this case doesn't do much for me. There appears to be THREE whole different recitals going on- MDG, CPO, and Naxos.
'Uber der Linie VII' Solo Violin
VIOLIN CONCERTOS:
1) 'Lichszwan'g(?) Hanssler
2) 'Gesungengd Zeit'(?) DG
3) 'Drittes Musik' Hanssler
4) 'Lichtes Spiel'(?) DG
5) 'Coll'Arco' Hanssler
6) 'Gedicht des Malers' (2014)
CELLO & PIANO:
It seems the main piece is, again, 'Antlitz' ('von weit'), with the solo piece 'Uber der Line'(?) being the newer work. The latter piece comes in various guises for various instruments.
'Protokol- ein Traum' 8 Cellos
CELLO CONCERTOS:
(not in order)
1) Concerto in Einem Satz (CRC was ambivalent)
2) Doppelgesang (Double Concerto) (liked)
3) 'Uber de Linie'
4) 'Styx und Lethe'
5) 'Monodram'
6) 'Versuchung' (2008-09)
VIOLA:
Not finding music interest here.
'Canzona' 4 Violas
'Canzona Nuova'
Viola Concerto
'Uber der Linie IV'
'Morphonie' (Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra)
'CONCERTO' (Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra) Arditti
DUOS:
There might be a small piece for 2 Violins on a various disc I have ('Compassion' Angel?) and there is a nother duo, 'Duomonolog' which features on one or two recitals. Also the 'Dyade'(?) from the 2nd Mutter disc.
'Am Horizant' Violin, Cello, Accordion
'Uber der Linie VI' Flute, Violin, Cello
STRING TRIO:
'Music for Three String Instruments'' is one of Rihm's best pieces*********************************
There is also a very good "bass" String Trio; one of his best*********************************
And also a sequel 'En Nuce'
PIANO TRIO:
The massive 'Fremde Szenen' is also one of Rihm's best works*********************************
CLARINET TRIO:
On a Jubal Trio disc. Haven't heard.
CLARINET:
'Vier Male'
CLARINET QUINTET
4 Studies for Clarinet Quintet (40")
Not much going on with other DUOS, but there is a Kairos CD of 'Trios', which, frankly, isn't all that. Also the disc of Kairos 'Chiffres'. Then the CPO 'Chiffres'.
Musik fur Oboe mit Orchestra
Musik fur Klarinette mit Orchestra
Uber de Linie (Clarinet Concerto)
Horn Concerto (2013-14)
'Marysas' Concerto for Trumpet
'Sound As Will' Trumpet & Ensemble
Canzona per Sonare 'Uber der Linie V' AltoTrombone & Orchestra
'Psalmus' Concerto for Bassoon
Sextett (2013-2014) Clarinet, Horn, SQ
Morphonie (1974) SQ & Orchestra
Sub-Kontur (1974-75)
Cuts and Dissolves (1976)
Lichtszwang- Cto f Violin No.1
FAUST AND YORICK
Abgesangesszene 1-5 (1979) JAKOB LENZ
La Musique Cruese la Ciel- Cto 2 Pianos
Doppelgesang No.1- Double Concerto
TUTUGURI (1980-82)
Chiffre I (1982), Chiffre II, Chiffre III
Viola Concerto
Doppelgesang No.2
Monodram
Schwartzer und Roter Tanz (from Tutuguri)
Chiffre V
Dis-Kontur
Fusees (1984)
Schatterstucke (1984)
Vorgefuhl
Abkehr
Chiffre VII
Dammerung
Umriss
Spur
Aufzechnung: Dammerung und Umriss DER HAMLETMACHINE
Ubennant (1986)
Ubennant II
Ubennant III
Compresenze
Danse
Blick
Splitter
KLANGBESCHREIBUNG 1-3
CHIFFRE-ZYKLUS (1982-1988)
MUSIC IN MEMORIAM LUIGI NONO:
Abgehwande I
Abgehwande II
Cantus Firmus
Ricercare
Umfassung
La Lugubre Gondola
Schwebende Begengung (1989) DIE EROBERUNG DIE MEXICO
Dunkles Spiel
Ins Offene...
Ungemaltes Bild
THIS CLOSES OUT THE 1980S ORCHESTRAL WORKS (MOSTLY)
ORCHESTRAL WORKS 1990-2016
Gesungene Zeit (Violin Concrto No.2) 1991-92
Dritte Musik (Violin Concerto No.3)
Sphere
IN-SCHRIFT
Vers un Symphonie Fleuve 1-3 (1992-95) +4
Musik fur Oboe und Orchestra
Styx und Lethe (Cello Concerto)
Ernster Gesang
Ernster Gesang mit Lied
Marsyas (Trumpet Concerto)
Musik fur Klarinette und Orchestra
Sotto Voce (Piano Concerto)
"CONCERTO" Dithyrambe
Spiegel und Fluss
Im Anfang
Verbogene Formen
JAGDEN UND FORMEN (1995-2001)
Gejagte Formen
Nach-Schrift
Viola Concerto No.2 (Uber die Linie II) 2000'2002
Canzona per Sonare (Alto Trombone Concerto)
Das Lesen der Schrift
Two Other Movements
Ubennant V (Organ Concerto)
Konzert in Einem Satz (Cello Concerto)
Coll'Arco (Violin Concerto)
Psalmus (Bassoon Concerto)
VERWANDLUNG 1-4 2002
[/size]
NAHE-FERN 1-4 Symphony "Nahe fern"[/b]
"Seraphim" Symphony
ORCHESTRAL SONGS
'O Notte' (baritone; 7mins.) (Bayer)
"Holderlin piece" (Abbado/SONY)
"Rilke piece" ('Orchestral Songs Mahler/Rihm' CPO).....new..........
'Depart' choral (Abbado/DG1)
bildlos/weglos (Abbado/DG2)
Frau/Stimme (ColLegno, Hannsler)
Frage (Wergo)
Bildlos/Weglos
I had avoided this for the longest time, thinking there was a lot of awful singing, BUT, wow, this may be the best piece I've heard from Rihm. It's on the DG 'Hommage a Tarkovsky' Abbado disc. Some of the best vocalese I've heard,... great stuff here@@@!!!
PLEASE CHECK OUT MY WORKS LISTS ABOVE, AND COMMENT!!!!!!
Quote from: snyprrr on May 24, 2016, 06:29:15 AM
Bildlos/Weglos
I had avoided this for the longest time, thinking there was a lot of awful singing, BUT, wow, this may be the best piece I've heard from Rihm. It's on the DG 'Hommage a Tarkovsky' Abbado disc. Some of the best vocalese I've heard,... great stuff here@@@!!!
It's an odd piece. While the programme on that disc is supposedly an homage to Andrei Tarkovsky, "bildlos/weglos" is essentially Rihm's homage to Luigi Nono.
Quote from: CRCulver on May 24, 2016, 02:33:34 PM
It's an odd piece. While the programme on that disc is supposedly an homage to Andrei Tarkovsky, "bildlos/weglos" is essentially Rihm's homage to Luigi Nono.
I find you the most consistently critical of Rihm in your Amazon reviews- lol, I mean that as a compliment!- but, I've noticed a general dissatisfaction with many of the pairings of recent vintage, including the ColLegno, Wergo, Neos, and Hannsler issues.
Now, I pretty much agree with you on most all things, and I'm definitely having a "Rihm problem" (oh, that sounds awful). He's so diverse, and we've all plowed this field over and over looking for gems (I just said no to the '4 Studies for Clarinet Quinet'... so many of his pieces are so long), and time and again I keep saying, "Well, Im glad I held off of that one for now."
I was particularly dismayed by '
Sub-Kontur' and '
Dis-Kontur', and even some of '
Tutuguri', because of Rihm's favorite percussive device: the punctuating jungle drum assault trick. And I really don't care too much for all the newer Orchestral Works and Concertos that sound like they were written by Brahms in 1919-1926 after WWI. Or Berg on Valium? '
Coll-Arco' and the
String Quartet No.11 came to mind. And the '
Konzert in einem Satz'.
I just listened again to 'Time Chant' by Mutter today, trying to remember the first Rihm exposure: it came off as a "major piece", and one where Rihm was trying hard and succeeding at whatever agenda he had there- it does have its cosmic moments. Then, also, the 'Licht Spiel', which is waaay more like Brahms/Berg1926, so very conservative and Hollywood, again, a biggish piece, but this time I'd rather hear DSCH.
Jagden und FormenIt's just that this is his "hit single" so to speak, on the consumer stage of Tower Records. It's pretty cool, and renders a lot of CDs also-rans (all those 'Chiffre' CDs, though I'd like another crack at the CPO). I almost want to say, "Why do I have to get more Rihm?"
I recently got the
very first Hannsler 2CD with 'Morphonie' and that 'Klang...' piece. 'Klang...' was from 1989,right before the Nono-Conversion. This piece has all kinds of stuff lacking from others, but there isn't much Rihm that sounds like this 'Klang...' piece. I thought the '
bildlos/weglos' had that arch-modernist sound I love. Also '
Frau/Stimme' and '
Frage' were cool.
Hannsler Vol1: 4 ConcertosCONCERTO Dithyrambe/ Sotto Voce
Sphare---Sphare/ Frage
Holderlin Fragmente (SONY).... I'd like to hear...
Sorry, getting sleepy... I'm all ears if you want to Rihm-inate! ;)
(I know you always go back to 'Im Innersten'... I really liked SQ 13)
Jagden und Formen (1995-2001)
I dedicated the hour to listening to the DG version (it has now been updated by ten years or so). It actually seemed to go by rather quickly,
J+F, to me, comes of as a very "etched" Symphony-Concerto for Orchestra, which seems to me an appropriate designation for Rihm in general: the "Symphony-Concerto" guy. I do remember my absolute favourite part is where- I assume- it's the tuba that makes the sound of a hippo's death wail... I actually missed it last night, but remember- do you?
Rihm's music sounds to me as if the pen came alive in a cartoon, becoming thinner with the etched sections, more like a Sharpie at other times. I can really hear Rihm's music being written (I think at the very end of the 7th SQ, the cello plays this long ostinato, which is then "scribbled out" before resuming again).
There's none of Rihm's Nono-isms here, it's all moto-Rihm all the way. But there's also not much in the way of extended techniques or 'misterioso' elements as there are in the earlier 'Klangschreibung I-III' (1987; @90mins.!). Between these two very large pieces (1985-2005, let's say) lies an ocean's worth of other Orchestral Works. At this point I feel the need to be careful with Rihm so as not to overstay his welcome with dud-flops. Collecting Rihm could break a man $$$!! LOL!!!
Right now, my favourite Rihm occurs between 1986 and 1995. Here lies much oddball Rihm, with interesting sounds not found elsewhere. I took special note of Rihm's LEAST prolific years and worked out from there- there seem to fall- 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005... and one can see the changing tides along these lings. After 2006 it's all New Rihm. Before 1985 it's all black-as-night Rihm. 1986-1995-2001 seems to hold the most treasures. Others may disagree...
String Quartet No.6 'Blaubuch' (198345?)
Here is an example from the tail end of Rihm's frenzied first flowering (1976-1985) of Rihm that I'm not particularly fond of, though it has its moments. It's in Rihm's "frenzy" style, but, here's the rub- it's over 40mins. long! For me, all things work together here to wear the listener down, wither by accident, or, more likely, on purpose. In this regard, it sits in with the extra-long String Trio and Piano Trio from the same era. But here I'm just not convinced; perhaps it is the sameness of sound of four strings grating and grinding for so long?
My least favoured Rihm SQs are No.6 and No.11 (perhaps along with its progenitor, the 'Quartettstudie') simply because they are Rihm at his most unbridled and edit-free. I do think No.6 could have been shorter, but, maybe not? Still, the only way i can take a longer Rihm piece is if there are different and interesting sounds to go along with the 'Zeit' thing. In No.6 it's pretty austere and brutal; in No.11 it's somewhat Romantic wallowing.
To see how turned-around things get, just check out the next SQ, No.7 'Verwanderung'. It's 18mins. are packed with interesting and misterio sounds, even more so than the more famous No.8 (I think 7-10 are the high point right now, including No.13). Maybe the most tellingoaf all is No.10, which has two static and event-free mouvements surrounding a much longer central "Battle" that truly, by the end, is a barrel-of-monkies of fun- it really sounds like a fight! It shows Rihm straddling his various interests quite intelligently, solving musical problems,... so many problems...
I will admit to not caring for much of his later, more conservative orchestral works. But even so, that leaves so many gold mines it hurts.
I'd be fairly comfortable calling this my favorite Rihm disc:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/610X3FIKYzL._SS280.jpg)
Quote from: nathanb on June 01, 2016, 11:35:06 AM
I will admit to not caring for much of his later, more conservative orchestral works. But even so, that leaves so many gold mines it hurts.
I'd be fairly comfortable calling this my favorite Rihm disc:
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/610X3FIKYzL._SS280.jpg)
That's the one I had just got for dirt cheap- and yes, no matter how you slice it, there's just so much THERE there in this set... it MAKES you go on the hunt for more stuff like it, but, alas, this IS it... I've been wrestle with it for a few weeks (long timed tracks makes it harder to listen through in one sit- logistics and cars...)...
I think 'Klangsch...' has a little of the attitude of DSCH's Symphony No.1 and BAZ's Sinfonie in einem satz... very dark, black, etched, spattered/splattered... when everyone else was going "up to date", it seems Rihm went back to Hartmann and early Zimmermann...
I struggle to find what goes along with it... I'm tempted with the 2nd String Quartet Concerto )"CONCERTO" Dithyrambe)... but I can already tell they're completely different animals... I think the ColLegno 'Orchestral & Chamber Music' fits some of the same pointers...
sorry- grogged out this a.m.
I think I'm going to the bank tomorrow on Rihm's behalf.... I believe he's be touched knowing I'm going to financially hurt myself for HIM!!!!! haha :laugh:... Have Mercy...
I really am starting to get a grip on who
ARE Rihm...
So, anyhow... between the works of 'Klangschreibung I-III' and 'Jagden und Formen'... we really have such huge big great works there... I was taking them for granted...
Gesungene Zeit (1991-1992)
Is this like a super successful indie director making his first Hollywood movie?
It... like much other Rihm... doesn't seem to fit with other works around it... it IS more lyrical, but it still has an Avant edge to it. The 2nd Mutter piece is like fully blown Ultra-Late Romanticism... I'd say @1935-1936...?...
I NEED TO HEAR WHAT OTHERS THINK HERE
On the way to heat transfer (class), I listened to (not for the first time, just a special time)...
Styx Und Lethe
...as if I needed further proof that I far prefer early/middle Rihm to later Rihm...
Quote from: nathanb on June 06, 2016, 03:22:43 PM
On the way to heat transfer (class), I listened to (not for the first time, just a special time)...
Styx Und Lethe
...as if I needed further proof that I far prefer early/middle Rihm to later Rihm...
Yes, yes,... but.... uh... wait... what? You likey or no likey? I thought everyone liked that Hanssler Vol.1 with the four concertos? I've been trying to talk myself out of it. Please, say more... I think 1995 is the cut-off for the 1986-1995 period, even though that particular one is marked heavy with a lot of the overt "Nono" pieces that no one seems to like. But then, 'Jagden und Formen' isn't released until 2001, so, where... what?... is this 'Late' Rihm?
It's obviously the stuff that starts to sound like someone from 1926,... hey, it would've been avant THEN! I've been heavily debating on that 'Sotto Voce' disc with the Arditti concerto,... it's only 54mins. run time, ouch! But also,... eh... mm... I'm hemming and hawing here.
I'm gonna make a list here- next Post:
Morphonie (1972; Concerto for String Quartet and large orchestra) 40mins.
This is his big debut hit, and it's Hartmann and early Zimmermann, scorching and blazing . I really see so need to get any other Orchestral Work till the late '80s, the 'Klangschreibung I-III' to be exact, which also happen to be on the same 2CD set (Hannsler). Many think it's the best overall Rihm introduction next to the DG.
String Quartet No.3 'Im Innersten' (1976) @35mins.
Musik fur Drei Streicher (1977) @60mins.
'Frembde Szenen I-III' (1979?-1983?) @45mins.
The great length,and generally high level of tension throughout these Chamber Music works, make Orchestral Rihm in the '70s seem to pale in comparison. Or, maybe, they are just that much closer to the heart of the matter. I'd say these three are the Perfect Rihm Symphony of Horror. This is great, meaty stuff,... but, get them all and really have a go at it on a stormy night!
String Quartet No.7 'Veranderungen'? @17mins.
String Quartet No.8 'Ohne Titel' 15mins.
String Quartet No.9 'Quartettsatz' @23mins.
String Quartet No.10
No.7 is by far the most effects heavy, and coolest in my book, overshadowed by the Arditti's No.8, which has the "ripping of the score" bit and such antics. No.9 is a meaty nut to crack, encapsulating a lot of Rihm's new found concerns; and No.10 has two static, Nono-like outer movements surrounding a central 'Battaglia/Folia' that is a literal "fight" amoungst the combatants- hilarious!
String Quartet No.12
String Quartet No.13
No.11 seemed to be in Rihm's melodic mode of late, but these two continue on with what I think is intereesting music, No.13 being the standout to my ears.
1985
Klanschreibung I-III (...1987)
These three pieces equal about 90mins. of the best effects heavy Rihm. I don't know of any other piece that does what these do. And I think most everyone agrees, it's just a bygone conclusion at this point. Great stuff, black as night.
Depart
Frau/Stimme
Bildlos/Weglos
Frage
The first is with chorus, the others with female singer(s). These are mostly in that great early-'90s period and represent some of the most creative set piece building around. 'Depart' opens with just such a creepy graveyard feel, only to move along. 'Bildlos/Weglos' builds to the soprano's eerie entry. Rihm wrote what seems like dozens of Orcheatral Works between 1985-1995, but I think these are the standouts. Besides the Mutter, this is not a concerto-driven era.
'CONCERTO' Dithyrambe
'Sotto Voce' Notturno & Capriccio
This Kairos disc seems pretty short of time, but these pieces intrigue me more than the string concertos of that Hanssler disc. Can you talk me out of this one?
JAGDEN UND FORMEN
yea, it's pretty cool fun there, can't deny the fun here, lots of it.
And it seems like I'm supposed to have more. What's wrong here?
snyprrr,
The main Rihm pieces that come to mind in the "don't do much of anything for me" category would be the Verwandlungen pieces. And the Two Other Movements were a bit tedious too. Konzert In Einem Satz was nothing compared to Styx Und Lethe, either. I guess that's only the last 10 or so years of stuff that I find uninspired. As for what would qualify as "late Rihm", it could be those, or it could be elsewhere. He definitely has more than two distinctive creative periods...
It'll be hard to talk you out of any KAIROS disc, snyprrr. THAT... ain't my style ;)
If you want to save money, I'd say grab the Arditti 3/5/8 disc and then ignore his other quartets for a while. They're solid quartets, but for someone not looking to take out a second mortgage over Rihm, the orchestral collection demands more attention.
Quote from: nathanb on June 07, 2016, 06:34:41 AM
snyprrr,
The main Rihm pieces that come to mind in the "don't do much of anything for me" category would be the Verwandlungen pieces. And the Two Other Movements were a bit tedious too. Konzert In Einem Satz was nothing compared to Styx Und Lethe, either. I guess that's only the last 10 or so years of stuff that I find uninspired. As for what would qualify as "late Rihm", it could be those, or it could be elsewhere. He definitely has more than two distinctive creative periods...
So, wait, did LIKE 'Styx und Lethe', or not?? That second cello concerto does go on, just like that clarinet concerto thing...
Quote from: nathanb on June 07, 2016, 06:36:49 AM
It'll be hard to talk you out of any KAIROS disc, snyprrr. THAT... ain't my style ;)
If you want to save money, I'd say grab the Arditti 3/5/8 disc and then ignore his other quartets for a while. They're solid quartets, but for someone not looking to take out a second mortgage over Rihm, the orchestral collection demands more attention.
No, I've had the Arditti disc for decades... I just don't like the way ColLegno divvied up the Minguet Cycle... either way, Vol.3, with 7-9, would be the one to get there. I also have the ABQ in No.4.
No, I've had the first Mutter, the J+F on DG, and the Arditti, since they came out. It's been EXPANDING my Rihm universe that has been the rub. And I did just order that old ColLegno disc with 'Frau/Stimme' and 'IN-SCHRIFT'... but, besides the Hannsler and Kairos "concerto" discs, I think I might've actually passed my Rihm obstacle course!
He has nothing else quite like the 'Klanschreibung'. does he? 'Tutuguri' had too many elementally pounding drums for me.
AND-
That Bayer CD with 'O Notte', the viola concerto, the Red & Black Dance, and the two other pieces...(one is 'Dunkles Spiel') have you heard that one? It's tempting, but the last two pieces are kind of soft in Rihm's Nono=period way, and the rest of the programme doesn't really send my juices a'flowin'.
My usual strategy with Composers like Rihm (too much stuff- Milhaud, Cowell, Villa-Lobos...) is to over-study their Works List, and cross ref that with their Discography, until I've seen for my own eyes how flippin expensive it would be to even START collection! But, many times, there is one CD, or set, that really encapsulates a lot...
Rihm is just an odd case
sorry, i'm poopin out for the evening... zzZZzz....zzzZZzzzz...zzZZzzz.....
Yes, LOVED Styx Und Lethe.
Though I will admit that some other pieces around that period are signs of the decline.
MY usual strategy with just about any composer is to pick out the discs from favorite labels first (KAIROS/NEOS/Col Legno/Mode/Wergo/Aeon). Unfortunately, after all was said and done, my iPod has 41 Rihm monographics on it...
Quote from: nathanb on June 07, 2016, 06:51:22 PM
Yes, LOVED Styx Und Lethe.
Though I will admit that some other pieces around that period are signs of the decline.
MY usual strategy with just about any composer is to pick out the discs from favorite labels first (KAIROS/NEOS/Col Legno/Mode/Wergo/Aeon). Unfortunately, after all was said and done, my iPod has 41 Rihm monographics on it...
Hannsler Vol.1 gets a 10/10 from you? OK, that settles it...
Quote from: snyprrr on June 08, 2016, 07:24:30 AM
Hannsler Vol.1 gets a 10/10 from you? OK, that settles it...
9/10 overall probably. Only the Morphonie/Klangbeschreibung gets a 10/10 for hannsler. I would overall probably recommend these higher than the Edition No. 1:
All KAIROS Rihm (6, to my knowledge)
All NEOS Rihm Monographics (Monographics because the Konzert In Einem Satz w/ the Toch concerto is def not that great)
Et Lux (ECM)
Maybe Sub-Kontur/Dis-Kontur/Unbennant IV? (Col Legno)
And of course you don't have to have two sets of the piano pieces, but when the two sets are from KAIROS and NEOS, that there is an equation with no solution...
I also like Dominik Susteck a lot but admittedly his Rihm might be the least amazing of his WERGO quintet.
Quote from: nathanb on June 08, 2016, 03:00:52 PM
9/10 overall probably. Only the Morphonie/Klangbeschreibung gets a 10/10 for hannsler. I would overall probably recommend these higher than the Edition No. 1:
All KAIROS Rihm (6, to my knowledge)
All NEOS Rihm Monographics (Monographics because the Konzert In Einem Satz w/ the Toch concerto is def not that great)
Et Lux (ECM)
Maybe Sub-Kontur/Dis-Kontur/Unbennant IV? (Col Legno)
And of course you don't have to have two sets of the piano pieces, but when the two sets are from KAIROS and NEOS, that there is an equation with no solution...
I also like Dominik Susteck a lot but admittedly his Rihm might be the least amazing of his WERGO quintet.
I thought his Piano Music was his least successful genre?
Also, the 'Dis' and 'Sub' pieces had too much of Rihm's particular use of percussion (he does seem to favour very primal beats which I have a hard time tolerating- here is where Xenakis excels)- but I did like the sounds of 'Ubennant IV'.
Hey- so are we like best new buds or what, LOL!!?? You sure are helping me save some $$$, haha!! (I did just get the York Holler 'Topic' disc which is phenomenal!)
I AM glad there are people out there that I can vicariously live through their Libraries... I have a great imagination, so I don't actually need to HEAR a lot of things, the IDEA is the thing...
Again, we are always on the search for the "aha" moment, no?
Quote from: snyprrr on June 09, 2016, 06:38:22 AM
I thought his Piano Music was his least successful genre?
Also, the 'Dis' and 'Sub' pieces had too much of Rihm's particular use of percussion (he does seem to favour very primal beats which I have a hard time tolerating- here is where Xenakis excels)- but I did like the sounds of 'Ubennant IV'.
Hey- so are we like best new buds or what, LOL!!?? You sure are helping me save some $$$, haha!! (I did just get the York Holler 'Topic' disc which is phenomenal!)
I AM glad there are people out there that I can vicariously live through their Libraries... I have a great imagination, so I don't actually need to HEAR a lot of things, the IDEA is the thing...
Again, we are always on the search for the "aha" moment, no?
I don't know much about the critical acclaim of his piano music, but some of it is quite enjoyable. At least grab one of the KAIROS discs. As far as the Sub-/Dis-, I actually agree with you that his percussion sound here can be a bit much (but I'd agree moreso if we were talking about the last part of Tutuguri), but these pieces also have his growling early brass sound in spades, so I can't say no.
And yes, best buds could be a fair way to put it :) I was a bit hesitant about what to do after migrating over here, but when some guy starts talking about Ruzicka and Holler non-stop, I have found my calling.
Quote from: snyprrr on June 09, 2016, 06:38:22 AM
I thought his Piano Music was his least successful genre?
Well, it is hard for me to enjoy much of my Rihm piano collection after what Siegfried Mauser did and was told by the judge at his trial.
Quote from: CRCulver on June 10, 2016, 12:09:06 PM
Well, it is hard for me to enjoy much of my Rihm piano collection after what Siegfried Mauser did and was told by the judge at his trial.
Yikes! Didn't know about that!
I guess you'll have to fall back on...
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5103Y8BZhmL._SS280.jpg)
Quote from: CRCulver on June 10, 2016, 12:09:06 PM
Well, it is hard for me to enjoy much of my Rihm piano collection after what Siegfried Mauser did and was told by the judge at his trial.
DAS GRAPSCHER!!!???!!!?!?!?!?!!
:o ??? :o
??? :o ???
:o ??? :o
Quote from: nathanb on June 10, 2016, 01:07:03 PM
Yikes! Didn't know about that!
I guess you'll have to fall back on...
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5103Y8BZhmL._SS280.jpg)
jUDGE: "You may think you're as sexually attractive as James Bond, but you overrate yourself,... and aren't that hawt" (paraphrased)
His colleague says that the lady doth protest too much and took revenge because SM passed her up for a promotion? kitty kitty
The New World Order: If you have a penis in a position of power, WATCH OUT!!
Probably just as EZ to put k-porn on his computy...
As for me, Mauser has all of a sudden become more interesting to me... will have to dif out CDs and see if I can hear any perversions under the fingernails...
Quote from: snyprrr on June 11, 2016, 06:47:51 AM
DAS GRAPSCHER!!!???!!!?!?!?!?!!
:o ??? :o
??? :o ???
:o ??? :o
jUDGE: "You may think you're as sexually attractive as James Bond, but you overrate yourself,... and aren't that hawt" (paraphrased)
His colleague says that the lady doth protest too much and took revenge because SM passed her up for a promotion? kitty kitty
The New World Order: If you have a penis in a position of power, WATCH OUT!!
Probably just as EZ to put k-porn on his computy...
As for me, Mauser has all of a sudden become more interesting to me... will have to dif out CDs and see if I can hear any perversions under the fingernails...
You know who the lady in question was?
No, actually, let me re-phrase that: You
know the lady in question. At least you have a few records by her, I'd say. Decidedly a better musician than Mauser, for what it's worth.
Got this in the mail yesterday. I loves me some fresh Rihm string quartets!
[asin]B072L2NL8B[/asin]
Quote from: petrarch on July 30, 2017, 11:20:25 AM
Got this in the mail yesterday. I loves me some fresh Rihm string quartets!
[asin]B072L2NL8B[/asin]
Instant chubby right thar! ;)
I was able to resist getting that other Wergo SQ, but now, oy, ah, eek, what am I to do?? IGOR, SAVE ME!!
Quote from: petrarch on July 30, 2017, 11:20:25 AM
Got this in the mail yesterday. I loves me some fresh Rihm string quartets!
[asin]B072L2NL8B[/asin]
OUCH!! 47mins.
And I see the two early SQs are the featured attraction, with one new SQ and one new String Quintet, All pieces shortish. Mmmm... I'm losing a little bit of girth over those details...
But still, nice to see
47 mins or not, it's a disc with Rihm SQs!
I think it has been 6 (!) years since my previous listening of the full set of Rihm SQs in chronological order (I think I posted about it at the time) and I have been itching to do it again. There's just something irresistible about those works. The difference is that nowadays I would include the two Wergo CDs for a total of 6 discs of Rihm SQ bliss :).
Quote from: petrarch on August 15, 2017, 04:24:08 PM
47 mins or not, it's a disc with Rihm SQs!
I think it has been 6 (!) years since my previous listening of the full set of Rihm SQs in chronological order (I think I posted about it at the time) and I have been itching to do it again. There's just something irresistible about those works. The difference is that nowadays I would include the two Wergo CDs for a total of 6 discs of Rihm SQ bliss :).
It was either 6 or 7 that I really liked, and either 6 or 7 that I found too long...
And all kinds of things begin to happen around 8-12...
I hear ya, though,... Rihm has a maddening effect like that, makes you want to binge...
Still, at 47mins., they could've given us sooomething... (if I were more inclined, I'm sure I would be right there with ya as to not caring about the timing)
Will we get a monstrous Masterpiece out of Rihm shortly?? Something new and unheard of??
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71cMrywPMhL._SS500_.jpg)
What is Uber die Linie? There seem to be a lot of pieces with the same title. What's he about, what's he trying to do?
So far I find it above recording so sprawling it's unpleasant, I'm trying to decide whether to put it to one side, or whether there are ideas in there worth pursuing. Part of the problem may be the spotify sound.
I got interested in it because one of my heros, Arne Deforce, played it -- alas no recording by him.
Quote from: Mandryka on May 13, 2020, 11:23:58 AM
What is Uber die Linie? There seem to be a lot of pieces with the same title. What's he about, what's he trying to do?
It's a cycle. There is plenty about Rihm's use of cycles as a compositional approach in Knockaert's book. Specifically,
Über die Linie is mentioned in a chapter devoted to how strong an influence the fine arts have on the composer, but not a lot beyond quoting the brief notes to
Über die Linie VIII, here (https://www.universaledition.com/wolfgang-rihm-599/works/uber-die-linie-viii-15726).
Quote from: petrarch on May 13, 2020, 04:25:58 PM
It's a cycle. There is plenty about Rihm's use of cycles as a compositional approach in Knockaert's book. Specifically, Über die Linie is mentioned in a chapter devoted to how strong an influence the fine arts have on the composer, but not a lot beyond quoting the brief notes to Über die Linie VIII, here (https://www.universaledition.com/wolfgang-rihm-599/works/uber-die-linie-viii-15726).
Thanks
Quote from: snyprrr on June 06, 2016, 09:53:13 PM
Klanschreibung I-III (...1987)
These three pieces equal about 90mins. of the best effects heavy Rihm. I don't know of any other piece that does what these do. And I think most everyone agrees, it's just a bygone conclusion at this point. Great stuff, black as night.
What is this?
(Very much enjoying the 7th quartet. Such a shame that Snyprr was eradicated.)
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/yb/ee/fd1x7fol0eeyb_600.jpg)
I'd always thought that Quartettstudie is in Rihm's calm and fluid style, like violin and piano duo Anlitz. I'd previously known it through recordings by Ébène Quartet, and the Minguet Quartet, and I'd never found it particularly interesting.
Well I've just found this recording from Mivos Quartet and they give it relief, drama, and they fine more polyphonic interest too. I think it's rather good, even on Spotify (it's not available on Qobuz and I don't want to buy it because I'm not sure I'm interested in the other music on the CD.)
Quote from: petrarch on May 13, 2020, 04:25:58 PM
Knockaert's book.
What do you think of this book? I'm exploring Ciffre at the moment and so it has come up, I'm not sure whether there's too much technical analysis to be useful for me - I'm more interested in motivation, context, philosophy, consequences, reception etc.
Fremde Szenen is a set of three pieces for piano trio inspired in some way by Schumann. Here are the notes about it from the publishers
Quote from: someone at Universal Editions here https://www.universaledition.com/wolfgang-rihm-599/works/fremde-szene-iii-2556These three "essays" for piano trio have become classics of new chamber music since their premiere in the early 1980s. Rihm is fully aware of the "strangeness" or "foreignness" of his chamber-music "scenes," in particular that of the second Trio, which bears the title Charakterstück ["character piece"], reminding listeners of Schumann. The composer warns: "The foreign tongue speaks its very own language, no note is quoted – [the music] falls, plunges into the notes."
The history of the genre already seems to be apparent in the first Trio behind a veil, typical of Rihm's gestures – impulsiveness, characteristically obsessive repetitions and pensive, meditative moments. The "character piece" is replete with surprises; the composer is inviting listeners on a surreal journey.
The beginning of the third Trio is fragmentary, languorous, with silences between the fragments; tradition seems to have receded into the background. But it returns after about three minutes, with gestures and paraphrases perhaps more reminiscent of Beethoven and Brahms than Schumann. In the course of the work the music shifts about oddly as Rihm seems to be playing with tradition, steering the music into pathways which surprise and fascinate the listener.
(https://www.chandos.net/artwork/CX9119.jpg)
When I first started to explore it I listened to this recording by The Beethoven Trio, and was disappointed. It felt too safe. After listening to Fremde Szenen II I actually went to Schumann's op 11 to see how he deals with impulsiveness in music, and I said to myself that Schumann is a much better composer that Rihm.
Well a few days ago I got this, and my opinion changed
(https://img.discogs.com/yjQ3SA6dF95-OqROXglevp2PeYA=/fit-in/600x534/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4839017-1377290193-2433.jpeg.jpg)
Trio Jean Paul make Rihm sound a much more impulsive and incandescent composer, and all the better for it. I like it.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51viQLSc5xL.jpg)
Akt und Tag for soprano and string quartet - 2006 and very original - includes a setting of William Blake's
Day - like it - the whole CD is full of interesting music.
QuoteThe Sun arises in the East,
Cloth'd in robes of blood and gold;
Swords and spears and wrath increast
All around his bosom roll'd
Crown'd with warlike fires and raging desires.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51jTdcj5k%2BL.jpg)
I'm sensing that the music deserves a better performance and a better recording. Talking about Quartet 11. Neo-Schumann style music. Has he lost the plot?
Much better on second listening. Challenging music that demands attention, but may well reward it, we shall see.
Quote from: Mandryka on July 26, 2020, 01:36:21 PM
Fremde Szenen is a set of three pieces for piano trio inspired in some way by Schumann. Here are the notes about it from the publishers
(https://www.chandos.net/artwork/CX9119.jpg)
When I first started to explore it I listened to this recording by The Beethoven Trio, and was disappointed. It felt too safe. After listening to Fremde Szenen II I actually went to Schumann's op 11 to see how he deals with impulsiveness in music, and I said to myself that Schumann is a much better composer that Rihm.
Well a few days ago I got this, and my opinion changed
(https://img.discogs.com/yjQ3SA6dF95-OqROXglevp2PeYA=/fit-in/600x534/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4839017-1377290193-2433.jpeg.jpg)
Trio Jean Paul make Rihm sound a much more impulsive and incandescent composer, and all the better for it. I like it.
Thanks for these recent Rihm comments. I haven't heard any of his output for some time (after being knocked flat by
Jagden und Formen -- but that's been awhile). All of these recordings look most interesting.
--Bruce
https://www.youtube.com/v/I6kCWoX6F38
The above is Rihm's third symphony I think. Is that what derde means? Anyway it's very interesting if you're in the mood for post Mahler inwardness, seriousness and grandeur. Is there a commercial recording? (The sound on YouTube is good.)
(Wow, listening to it was like Proust's Madeleine - all the way back to years and years ago when I would listen to stuff like Bruckner! There are some extraordinary Mahlerian moments. The lads at Doneraueschingen must have hissed and booed!)
It could just be because that's a performance on the Youtube channel of a Dutch radio station that the video is called that.
It is just the local translation of the name:
https://www.universaledition.com/wolfgang-rihm-599/works/3-symphonie-542
(http://covielloclassics.de/wp-content/uploads/COV-91506.jpg)
Yesterday I was sent back to Mahler and maybe even Bruckner; today I'm sent back to Hugo Wolff -- Das Rot. Very nice but so 19th century! But no way could anyone say, IMO, that this is just a well made pastiche, an exercise in style. It may well be partly that, but it's too good to be dismissed.
Quote from: Mandryka on July 26, 2020, 01:36:21 PM
Fremde Szenen is a set of three pieces for piano trio inspired in some way by Schumann. Here are the notes about it from the publishers
(https://www.chandos.net/artwork/CX9119.jpg)
When I first started to explore it I listened to this recording by The Beethoven Trio, and was disappointed. It felt too safe. After listening to Fremde Szenen II I actually went to Schumann's op 11 to see how he deals with impulsiveness in music, and I said to myself that Schumann is a much better composer that Rihm.
Well a few days ago I got this, and my opinion changed
(https://img.discogs.com/yjQ3SA6dF95-OqROXglevp2PeYA=/fit-in/600x534/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4839017-1377290193-2433.jpeg.jpg)
Trio Jean Paul make Rihm sound a much more impulsive and incandescent composer, and all the better for it. I like it.
From the Trio Jean Paul recording -- OCR not proofed!
QuoteWolfgang Rihm, from Fremde Blatter (uber Robert Schumann)
What is different about Schumann's music? That something is different different than usual we feel instinctively. Usual, those are the others, who are not bad, to be sure, but whose language does not usually dispense with familiar sounds and combinations even in remote intonations. Schumann's sounds are familiar to us today. of course, but we are not completely comfortable with them: that is: never completely, especially when they, these sounds, stand side by side, marking time alienated and trampling themselves into the ground. as in the last trio. Naturally. the fiery and precarious-passionate tone entirely typical of Schumann's early works is not so readily discernible in this late Trio as it is, for example, in the earlier D-Minor Trio, which of course also does not just move energetically, dynamically. This last Trio in G Minor, however, has a separate language that articulates music entirely appropriate to the condition and situation, and does not present it as a result of a processing of themes and motives. There are enough themes and motives, but then there is also
"a wide field" or a stream, and the themes and motives appear and disappear. There are no reference points. The music continuously creates itself, perhaps most conspicuously in the slow movement. in which it is difficult to discern a focal point. Everything flows and rushes, yet rests. The scherzo is the most distinct form in this series of structures, but its theme is above all: refused progress. Again and again, the circling, insisting form is forced to come near, is bent back to its beginning, and condemned to incessant rep-etition. The image of Sisyphus is certainly not too far away...
Music whose exertion is perceptible: And then? How does it continue? for it must. unswervingly, and even if it is only the motion type itself that sets itself into motion and stops and presses, pushes. and again losses something yes. what? music perhaps to the necessity of starting anew, of inces-santly having to start anew, from the bottom to the top, where there is again no goal. just the loss of the burden so strenuously heaved to the top. This is different than usual, where we could follow an existing path with a goal and purpose. The nowhereness, not so much the stylistic. but rather the nowhereness of the path, makes Schumann's music, above
all his late music. hardly tolerable for the (pre-)educated musical (pre-)understand-ing, that expects something appropriate to its education, but then encounters pre-conditions: unformed things. circling forms, latent developments, implication and ignis fatuus, which, all taken together, he the pre-educated must regard as failure. A love of Schumann's late work is not a priori some-thing outstanding, but he who so loves it experiences his own nature (strengthened, too, through the statements of qualified opponents). He becomes capable of giving a name to that which drives him thither.
The following is certain: the rejection of academic consistencies of any type, even that which understands itself as revolution-ary avant-gardistic and the sympathy with the conditional in art. Everything that is processed loses attractiveness and power in the face of that which is displayed, of the free growth of the fantasy. Since in Schumann's late work passages of relatively strong academic nature are especially conspicuous. something, for example, not at all present in Beethoven, who ultimately speaks so freely that no language can convey it but he speaks it intentionally free. whereas Schumann's free speech displays impulsive structures that, therefore, in Schumann's late work passages of relatively strong academic nature are especially conspicuous, may well lie on the great uncertainty that unrestrained speaking time and again imposes upon someone who so speaks, who finds himself, after all, alone. Time and again he must point out what is available as "ability," in the traditional sense, and accordingly as social reference. This is wearing at moments of despondency, makes one weak and susceptible for the momentar-ily afforded security of a generally accepted artistic language. But even these academic weak points are different in Schumann. They openly give information about their purpose: having to be makeshift bandages on irrepa-rable wounds. Through the circling, gloomy hopelessness of their diction, they once again act as expressive value, hectic spots, streaks of solidified stream. Parallels to physical conditions, to psychological events are not to be overheard.
The sound in the head —
The proofs of ability, however, are called for, namely by the inwrought demand of just that external musical life that Schumann nevertheless set out to represent again and again (for the last time, as director of music in Diisseldorf), and with which he could not
come to terms because he did not embody its hierarchical structure, and therefore could not represent it, contrarily structured as he was, and how his music sounds to us even today. Clara Schumann also demanded unconsciously? this proof of compositional ability. She revealed this indirectly, for example, in that, advised by the young aca-demics Joachim and Brahms, she believed it necessary to keep Schumann's Violin Concerto (with one of the most exciting slow movements that exists) under lock and key, certainly thinking that this would be of less harm to the madman than the release of what she and they saw as an incoherent product. Let us leave it with the observation: That which is freely formed and unexpected convention stand next to each other as if in quickly and restlessly furnished interi-ors that do not in any way invite to linger. Schumann's late work appears externally unfulfilled, uncomfortably constrained, and strange in its physiognomy. Similar to his own: with puffed up features, unclear profile, pouting mouth, heavy mat of hair, and swollen eyes.
It is surely false to play off things against another, which are not comparable (Schu-mann versus Brahms, for example). In Schumann's music, however, also in his late work, and there even radicalized I sense a connection (beyond Schoenberg's much-cited debt to the Brahmsian style) to us today, in our concept of a possible shaping of music. I have a deep sympathy for this type of contradictory production and person, more than for many a flashy success that only displays itself and allows no other way of looking at it.
About my own work:
In his younger years, Schumann occupied himself with the plan of a piano trio entitled "Scena" — Scene. The forest and children's and many other scenes of his oeuvre reveal an introvert who, under his own direction, gives life to the environment the world of nature or of man or perceives it as already put on the stage. This can even be under-stood to include the extroverted hysterical semantic content of the term "scene"; even if little happens outwardly, the inwardly tense dramatic household is overcrowded. In the second Strange Scene the first has an introductory character in this context I have attempted, among other things, to invent my personal portrait of Schumann and of his musical "handwriting." Not one measure
of Schumann is quoted, but his sound is present. The piece carries the subtitle "character piece." Through its stylistic strangeness and disorder, and the glimpses through the stylistic breaks to behind the style, the piece frequently makes the listener to a voluntary-involuntary voyeur: He has to be present when just this scene is "made." He observes strange scenarios that do not make any sense. Allusion, half-presenti-ment, and presumptions characterize the hysterical picture: Something is not right, and yet it flows and rages. Probably it is the stream, the river, which can never really be trusted. for in spite of all fluidity it is always a sort of shackle: In a river, a place is not possible; our motion is forced by its current, even if we give ourselves up controlled from without, swept along we do not move from the spot.
12 13
Wolfgang Rihm Strange Scenes I—Ill Essays for piano trio, first series (1982-1984)
The Strange Scenes are essays (i.e., attempts) for piano trio, and also: about "piano trio," that furniture-burdened for-mation which no longer exists, but which still stands around. Just as in abandoned rooms, the forbidden may take place here. We become witnesses to strange scenarios. At first, this is misleading. Some could be of the opinion that one is (unfortunately or finally) looking backwards. But since we know that a different way of speaking for example, the inflection of de Sade's Philosophy in the Boudoir in Heiner Miiller's Quartet does not mean that past times are being yearned for and are to be restoratively anchored in the present. Ever since we know this, we also know that a Schumann inflec-tion does not mean "we'll meet at the Coffee Tree! In original costumes!" (But musicians/ audiences are slow.) So strange and scenic, something chamber music has been not just since there were no more chambers. (Schumann's plan: a piano trio "Scena.") Almost every music is a strange scene that is experienced, whose execution we attend.
(How splendid the exaltations from close up.)
I. (1982) From the cold intervals, seek the hot sound. Fire in ice. For me, too, wonderful strange-ness at the venue of the premiere. Salzburg: The piece loitered about in a tumble, like Karl Valentin's pants (without Valentin). Everybody understood it for himself. It filled itself up with the various (mis- and other) understandings, and went away.
II. Character piece (1982-1983) Incessant, rapid, and tottering. The strange tongue speaks its own. Not one tone is quoted. One falls, plunges into the "tone." That which sounds like piano trio is weapon letter medical instrument virtuosity (of a struggle) exchange (portrait) excess relation operation
III. (1983-1984) Actually only notorious passages. Concentration and its loss.
Eckart Heiligers "Schumann is different. Different also than 'different.' He speaks music."
This statement by Wolfgang Rihm is possibly suited better than any other to describe the fascination that Schumann's music holds for us.
Music and language this, for our ensemble, central theme finds its correspondence in Schumann's idea of a "poetic music." The extremely speech-like, narrative nature of his music is however not to be under-stood here in the sense of the Baroque musical-rhetorical system of metaphori-cal expression, that is to say, as a tonal speech put together according to specific rules. (Although Schumann did create his own repertoire of figures with extramusical semantic elements, for example, the FAE motif, quotations of songs, etc.) His music does not attempt to be persuasive in the rhetorical sense, but rather speaks, often as if under duress, of the most intimate states of mind with a directness that makes one shudder.
In his Strange Scenes, Wolfgang Rihm has done nothing less than thematize the other-ness of Schumann's music, the composer's "strangeness/foreignness in the world," and
the inner strife and restlessness resulting from it. Not the unbroken musical form is the goal, but rather the conflict that itself creates its own dramatic form. In its undis-guised dramatic art and stirring emotionality, Rihm's music belongs to the most exciting that has been written for our formation in the recent past. It was therefore our special desire to juxtapose the works of these two composers on one recording.
For us, the study of the autographs repre-sents an important key to the understanding of the works. Whereas the situation con-cerning the Rihm sources is very clear, and merely a few inadvertent errors that occurred during the engraving of the printing plates could be ascertained, in Schumann's trios there are sometimes considerable devia-tions from the published editions. These, too, contradict each other in places, often raising new questions.
In many cases, this was apparently the result of Schumann's habit of repeatedly reworking daring first sketches as "works in progress," so to speak, in an attempt to adequately capture in writing the highly complex, imaginary tonal picture. The auto-graph versions therefore often possess the same "validity" as the later printed versions, frequently going even further in their uncompromisingness.
Thus, we noticed that Schumann had toned down and smoothed over many a roughness in the articulation and dynamics (and with that, also many a speech-like element) for the later printed version. In as far as it was not a question of obvious copying mistakes or inaccuracies, we decided in many cases in favor of the version in the autograph, which aimed toward a stronger dramatiza-tion. Unfamiliar is certainly our version of the second theme of the first movement of op. 80, which likewise stems from the auto-graph and appears nowhere in the printed edition (string accompaniment to the theme in the piano). Since no source can been found in which Schumann expressly rejects his original version, we decided in favor of it for musical reasons.
' The blast has arrived at the body': Wolfgang Rihm's creative explosion of 1981, Richard E. McGregor (professor, University of Cumbria)
http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/3450/1/McGregor_TheBlastHasArrived.pdf
Thank you for this very much.
What are some, two or three, works of Rihm that are worth checking out? He's written so much damn music, and my interest has been thoroughly piqued after hearing a couple of Lieder. It's interesting that he liked setting poetry of schizophrenics, which may seem to go in line with his interest in and identification with Robert Schumann.
Maybe pick up a disc of Lieder and go from there... But there's just so much music.
Quote from: vers la flamme on August 22, 2020, 07:22:05 AM
What are some, two or three, works of Rihm that are worth checking out? He's written so much damn music, and my interest has been thoroughly piqued after hearing a couple of Lieder. It's interesting that he liked setting poetry of schizophrenics, which may seem to go in line with his interest in and identification with Robert Schumann.
Maybe pick up a disc of Lieder and go from there... But there's just so much music.
If you have a taste for desert landscapes then try Anlitz (violin and piano.)
Quote from: vers la flamme on August 22, 2020, 07:22:05 AM
What are some, two or three, works of Rihm that are worth checking out? He's written so much damn music, and my interest has been thoroughly piqued after hearing a couple of Lieder. It's interesting that he liked setting poetry of schizophrenics, which may seem to go in line with his interest in and identification with Robert Schumann.
Maybe pick up a disc of Lieder and go from there... But there's just so much music.
This, from earlier in the thread has a few recommendations that are still applicable:
Quote from: petrarch on April 25, 2009, 02:55:41 AM
I have a lot of Rihm. Tutuguri is awesome and I usually dislike contemporary vocal music. Morphonie is an essential piece, as it was the one that sort of launched his career when it was premiered in Donaueschingen. A few others that stand out are Kein Firmament, Ins Offene/sphere and, of course, the 3/5/8 quartets played by the Arditti. You also won't go wrong with any of the SWR/Hanssler CDs.
Since then, I got quite a few discs of Rihm's vocal works, and the Lesser/Lesser, Prégardien/Mauser and Salter/Wambach discs were pleasant surprises, as I am not a huge fan of vocal music later than the Renaissance.
EDIT: I found it particularly interesting to compare the soprano vs baritone renditions of Lenz-Fragmente between Lesser/Lesser and Falk/Schleiermacher.
Quote from: Mandryka on August 22, 2020, 07:40:11 AM
If you have a taste for desert landscapes then try Anlitz (violin and piano.)
Listened to a few minutes of Anlitz and liked what I heard. Found it on disc, brand new, for three dollars. Thanks!
Quote from: petrarch on August 22, 2020, 07:50:57 AM
This, from earlier in the thread has a few recommendations that are still applicable:
Since then, I got quite a few discs of Rihm's vocal works, and the Lesser/Lesser, Prégardien/Mauser and Salter/Wambach discs were pleasant surprises, as I am not a huge fan of vocal music later than the Renaissance.
EDIT: I found it particularly interesting to compare the soprano vs baritone renditions of Lenz-Fragmente between Lesser/Lesser and Falk/Schleiermacher.
It would be nice to get to know Jakob Lenz but I can't find a video with English subtitles - do you know if there is one?
One major problem with Rihm lieder is getting the poems in English. I intend to upload some here and I make a plea for anyone who has any translations to do likewise. It could be a really valuable resource as the streaming recordings often don't come with booklets.
Quote from: Mandryka on August 22, 2020, 09:24:50 AM
It would be nice to get to know Jakob Lenz but I can't find a video with English subtitles - do you know if there is one?
I have never seen one; I have the recent DVD released on Alpha and the booklet doesn't have the text.
EDIT: I misread what you wrote. The Alpha DVD does have subtitles. What it doesn't have is the booklet with the full text and translations side-by-side.
Also, keep in mind that Jakob Lenz is
about Lenz, but the Lieder are on poems
by Lenz and are otherwise completely unrelated works.
Quote from: Mandryka on August 22, 2020, 09:24:50 AM
One major problem with Rihm lieder is getting the poems in English. I intend to upload some here and I make a plea for anyone who has any translations to do likewise. It could be a really valuable resource as the streaming recordings often don't come with booklets.
I'll check the CDs I have and will scan the booklets if they include the translated text.
EDIT: All but the Prégardien/Mauser have the full text with translation.
Quote from: petrarch on August 22, 2020, 10:02:34 AM
I have never seen one; I have the recent DVD released on Alpha and the booklet doesn't have the text.
This is the first I have heard of this release, so thanks for making me aware of it. But I am appalled that in 2019 a label released a plain low-definition DVD instead of a Blu-ray. The DVD release of Rihm's
Oedipus opera a few years back was understandable because that video was originally shot in low-definition for West German television in the 1980s, but what is Alpha's excuse for this 2015 production of
Jakob Lenz?
This looks fun, whatever they're singing about
https://www.youtube.com/v/eyq37usCwas
Quote from: Mandryka on August 22, 2020, 09:24:50 AM
One major problem with Rihm lieder is getting the poems in English. I intend to upload some here and I make a plea for anyone who has any translations to do likewise. It could be a really valuable resource as the streaming recordings often don't come with booklets.
I just found this:
https://www.lieder.net/get_settings.html?ComposerId=2336
Quote from: vers la flamme on August 22, 2020, 08:55:22 AM
Listened to a few minutes of Anlitz and liked what I heard. Found it on disc, brand new, for three dollars. Thanks!
There's a character who goes by the name of Scarecrow who reviews regularly for Amazon, he's a pianist/composer/"philosopher" who's been on the edges of the avant garde for years and years, worked with Cage and Shapey, part of the world which revolved around Cardew and Feldman centred in the Almeida Theatre in Islington London in the 90s . Here's his review of Antlitz. I love him.
QuoteThis is another reposeful Rihm, the flipside of the "gods", the" new gods" from his more explosive, brutal music, under the signs of post-modernity.; There is still that "otherness", something that wasn't realize in a prior time that now has a durational frame given to be fruitful. We find more of the Nietzsche "Apollo" here than ostentations of Dionysus. "geister Raum", free spaces, spirits, hovering round. The piano for instance utilizes the "sostenuto" pedal, that's where you silently depress keys, usually the lower end of the piano, and put down the middle peddle, simultaneously, you then must keep holding this middle pedal down. The resonances are cleaner, more refined, more ethereal. Here we find very obvious "tonal", what has been called post-electronic tonality", freely deployed disbursed, resonant tones, like all the white piano keys. We find that here in the piano, with the violin, playing very lyrical plaintive melos. The piano with this "sostenuto pedal" is kind of "fluffy", There are no total convulsions, here, no Dopplegang, double-over gestures"gestes", the music here is peaceful resolute "entschlossenes. There are "new gods" here ones that perhaps were previously concealed, who were turned away in the past. serenely released "gelassenes"
There's a recording which is dedicated to this difficult, sparse, fluid, quiet chamber style of Rihm, this
(https://img.discogs.com/4nLOfW6f5TgnyR0X_T7HO_apcuc=/fit-in/200x200/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-11658159-1520169176-6627.jpeg.jpg)
https://www.discogs.com/Wolfgang-Rihm-Image-Echo-Bilder-Echo/release/11658159
You can hear it all on YouTube.
Thoughts on this?
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1-I5PaAryL._SL500_.jpg)
I picked it up at a record store semi recently (for two dollars) and forgot about it. It comes with a huge booklet. I know nothing about the music. Seems to mostly date from the '70s and '80s.
Edit to add: Dunkles Spiel sounds great. Very primal, almost ritualistic. I still don't really understand what Rihm's music is all about, but I generally like what I'm hearing...
Quote from: Mandryka on August 22, 2020, 11:25:06 AM
This looks fun, whatever they're singing about
https://www.youtube.com/v/eyq37usCwas
This is very good. It's enough to make me want to start going to operas again.
Quote from: petrarch on April 25, 2009, 02:55:41 AM
Kein Firmament
I like this, I hadn't heard of it before you brought it up the other day, I like the spaciousness of it, the silences. It's like Cage, things just happen for no reason but somehow when they all come together it's music! Thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/v/MV_IPkgY-qg
A performance of Brahms' requiem with two pieces by Rihm in homage to the music, Das Lesen der Schrift. As far as I can see it's the only way to hear the Rihm.
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71jmD3ECRxL._SL1200_.jpg)
The 11th quartet is for me one of the most challenging pieces of music I've heard in a long time. There's a review on Amazon US which basically says it's a retreat from the avant garde, but I don't think that's a helpful, or indeed a meaningful thing to say. While much of the music does not have the ecstatically jagged contours which characterised the post war avant garde, it still challenges older notions of coherence and is still overflowing with expressive immediacy. In this music, you feel that anything is possible.
The reason I find it challenging is that it always feels in an unstable state, and that makes it maybe the least comforting pieces of music I've ever heard. It's awkward and precarious - as if constantly poised on a cantilever ready to tumble disastrously. The amazon review also claims that it's a Holocaust memorial piece, so maybe that comfort would be inappropriate. It has taken me a long time to be able to listen to it in fact - my first reaction was complete rejection, repulsion. I could not say of this music "I like it."
There are gestures to existing musics of course. I can't identify which composers are alluded to though, maybe a snip of the cavatina of op 130 by the composer who, like Voldemort and Sauron, does not need to be named. But I'm not sure.
I think the performance and sound do not do justice to the music. It's listenable, that's the best I can say. It was created by Takacs Quartet apparently, but I can find no trace of the performance.
Booklet is here
https://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/sharedfiles/booklets/WER/booklet-WER6756-2.pdf
Quote from: Mandryka on August 26, 2020, 12:49:49 AM
(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71jmD3ECRxL._SL1200_.jpg)
The 11th quartet is for me one of the most challenging pieces of music I've heard in a long time. There's a review on Amazon US which basically says it's a retreat from the avant garde, but I don't think that's a helpful, or indeed a meaningful thing to say. While much of the music does not have the ecstatically jagged contours which characterised the post war avant garde, it still challenges older notions of coherence and is still overflowing with expressive immediacy. In this music, you feel that anything is possible.
The reason I find it challenging is that it always feels in an unstable state, and that makes it maybe the least comforting pieces of music I've ever heard. It's awkward and precarious - as if constantly poised on a cantilever ready to tumble disastrously. The amazon review also claims that it's a Holocaust memorial piece, so maybe that comfort would be inappropriate. It has taken me a long time to be able to listen to it in fact - my first reaction was complete rejection, repulsion. I could not say of this music "I like it."
There are gestures to existing musics of course. I can't identify which composers are alluded to though, maybe a snip of the cavatina of op 130 by the composer who, like Voldemort and Sauron, does not need to be named. But I'm not sure.
I think the performance and sound do not do justice to the music. It's listenable, that's the best I can say. It was created by Takacs Quartet apparently, but I can find no trace of the performance.
Booklet is here
https://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/sharedfiles/booklets/WER/booklet-WER6756-2.pdf
There's a live performance of this, Stuttgart, on symphonyshare. Sounds good.
Rihmers may want to try this new CD which has a new song cycle - Vermischter Traum.
(https://www.linnrecords.com/sites/default/files/styles/square_400/public/album_cover/cover-ALPHA646.jpg?itok=C1fpzfYH)
Just found this hour-long, all-Rihm concert from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, archived from last December, with some outstanding artists including Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Tabea Zimmermann (viola), and Jörg Widmann (clarinet), among others. Program:
Sphäre nach Studie für 6 Instrumentalisten (1993/2002)
Stabat Mater für Bariton und Viola
Male über Male 2 für Klarinette und 9 Instrumentalisten (2000/2008)
https://www.br-so.com/livestream-musica-viva-rihm-without-audience-p34784/
--Bruce
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiNzk2MzgyMi4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6MjAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjEyODUxNTM5ODV9)
Fabulous, amazing Gesänge op 1 on this CD. Stramm sounds fun too
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/geometry-of-ideas/
Anyone enjoy any of the solo piano music?
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/510SDvGqqBL._SL1200_.jpg)
I think this is a different version of Jagden und Formen than the one on the other recording -- it's 2008 while the other was released in 2002 -- though I can't tell you what the differences are.
Quote from: Mandryka on June 05, 2021, 08:39:40 PM
Anyone enjoy any of the solo piano music?
Yes I do. Largely through discovering Udo Falkner's recordings.
(https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2617909664_10.jpg)
I just find this too long -- anyone get on with it? The sound is strange, the blurb says "hyper real" -- recorded in one of Hitler's bunkers outside Berlin.
Can anyone tell me if the Wergo Hamletmaschine has the libretto in English or French?
Also, is there anyone who has a recording of Clamatio who wouldn't mind sharing it with me?
I've found a recording of Duomonolog on the web -- does anyone who could be playing, was it ever recorded commercially? Same for Gebild, a duo for trumpet and piccolo.
Quote from: Mandryka on April 30, 2022, 12:41:19 AM
Can anyone tell me if the Wergo Hamletmaschine has the libretto in English or French?
Unfortunately, it's in German only, even though the booklet is in both English and German.
Quote from: petrarch on April 30, 2022, 05:40:00 AM
Unfortunately, it's in German only, even though the booklet is in both English and German.
I'll give it a miss then, I just can't enjoy this sort of work so much unless I have a libretto.
By the way, if you don't know it, the more recent material on this CD -
Geste zu Vedova and
Epilog - are well worth hearing!
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8348002--wolfgang-rihm-geste-zu-vedova-string-quartets-epilogue
Oh, and I've started to read
Le Théâtre et son Double - so far so good, I didn't realise that Artaud was so erudite.
. . . In fact I'd go as far as to say that Epilog is the peak, the summit, of his music for string ensemble.
Quote from: Mandryka on April 30, 2022, 09:40:20 AM
. . . In fact I'd go as far as to say that Epilog is the peak, the summit, of his music for string ensemble.
I should revisit that work, then. I realize now I probably haven't put that CD on in the last close to 5 years or so...
Does the CPO Eroberung von Mexico have an English libretto?
(Tremendous bit of music by the way!)
And here's the original Tutuguri, by Antonin Artaud. Ouf!
https://www.youtube.com/v/7gQAF0WAP5I&ab_channel=AndySenegas
Quote from: Mandryka on May 04, 2022, 12:11:25 AM
Does the CPO Eroberung von Mexico have an English libretto?
(Tremendous bit of music by the way!)
And I've been told no, no libretto in English.
Quote from: Mandryka on May 04, 2022, 12:42:35 PM
And I've been told no, no libretto in English.
Well, actually, no libretto as such in any language. The booklet reproduces
Artaud's texts
La Conquête du Mexique and
Le Théâtre de Séraphin, plus an
Octavio Paz poem also used by
Rihm, and all that is translated into English. I don't think a word by word libretto would be of much use in this piece, in any case.
I was lucky enough to see it fully staged here in a Madrid almost 10 years ago now, and it's superb (but my companion said "that's the strangest thing I've ever seen in a theatre" ;D).
Quote from: petrarch on April 30, 2022, 10:39:36 AM
I should revisit that work, then. I realize now I probably haven't put that CD on in the last close to 5 years or so...
It was hyperbole - this morning my feeling is that the title goes to Quartet 10. It's a cliché, but probably true, that Rihm is at his best when he's dealing with madness.
Quote from: ritter on May 04, 2022, 01:14:17 PM
Well, actually, no libretto as such in any language. The booklet reproduces Artaud's texts La Conquête du Mexique and Le Théâtre de Séraphin, plus an Octavio Paz poem also used by Rihm, and all that is translated into English. I don't think a word by word libretto would be of much use in this piece, in any case.
I was lucky enough to see it fully staged here in a Madrid almost 10 years ago now, and it's superb (but my companion said "that's the strangest thing I've ever seen in a theatre" ;D).
Well having the texts is better than nothing, though having said that I've tried to read Le Théâtre de Séraphin an got absolutely nul part! I need a commentary - have you found one?
I very much like the Séraphin music that I've heard, except maybe the etude, I maybe need to just give it more time.
As far as I can see the only opera planned in Europe for this 70th birthday year is Jakob Lenz. Nothing in France, Spain, Italy, Holland or the UK.
The Root of Man by Otavio Paz, set by Rihm in
Eroberung von Mexico QuoteI
Closer than music and the dance,
here, in the immobility,
the place of tense music,
under the great tree of my blood,
you rest. I am naked
and in my veins a power throbs,
the daughter of immobility.
This is the most immobile sky,
and this the purest nakedness.
You, dead, under the great tree of my blood.
II
Let all the voices burn
and singe my lips;
and night remain stopped
in the tallest flower.
No one yet knows your name;
your secret force moved
by the ripened gold of the stars
and the hanging night,
immobile ocean.
My love, everything grows still
in the burning voice of your name.
My love, everything grows still. You, with no name,
in the naked night of words.
III
This is your blood,
unknown, deep,
penetrating your body,
washing the unsuspecting,
unseeing banks of your self.
Innocent, far off,
in its dense insistence, in its route,
it pauses along the route of my blood.
A small wound,
it meets the light,
the air it never knew, my glances.
This is your blood, and this
the fugitive's whisper denouncing it.
And the times cluster
and return to the origin of days,
the hidden root quivers
like your electric hair where it is buried,
for life turns on that moment,
and time is a death of the times
and names and shapes forget themselves.
This is your blood, it is,
and the soul hangs in the emptiness
before the living nothing of your blood.
I'm listening to Blick auf Kolchis here - Nono vibes, sphäre vibes. Worth a listen.
https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/le-concert-de-20h/festival-presences-2019-wolfgang-rihm-diana-soh-marton-illes-et-sampo-haapamaeki-4134069
Notes on the piano music by Rudolf Frisius
https://www.frisius.de/rudolf/texte/tx1093.htm
Very much enjoying the Klangbeschreibung II
(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b273e3aeb52d083d07c687d9c524)
I'm not so keen on the performance of Duomonolog here, it seems too calm and sweet, and somehow the transitions make the music sound like a random juxtaposition of episodes rather than the development of a thought. I have a recording which is more biting and agressive which I much prefer, I don't know who's playing.
By the way, a bit of gossip about the stars. Is it true that Friedrich Gauwerky is Rihm's partner? Just something someone said to me in a conversation.
Quote from: Mandryka on July 14, 2022, 12:09:21 AM
Is it true that Friedrich Gauwerky is Rihm's partner? Just something someone said to me in a conversation.
If that were true, strange bedfellows: the representative composer of 1970s New Simplicity with a cellist who has performed the daunting New Complexity music of Ferneyhough and Klaus K. Hübler.
(https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b2734ffd36ff72488cd4dd8dff3c)
https://open.spotify.com/track/3i9kvst0lN2eUULowPYiUS
This one has an amusing Wolfli-Lieder - the singer, I'm not sure who he is, I think Richard Salter, is good I think. Romantic Russian style Rihm. Rihmorgsky.
(https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music30/v4/fc/ed/75/fced7552-e6d8-ed92-95d8-3990b7843b9d/cover.jpg/486x486bb.png)
Really impressive, and I mean really impressive, performance of the music for three stringed instruments. Josjem Ter Haar I know, but I've never come across The Netherlands String Trio before - this appears to be their only recording. Shame that.
The music is, I think, a high point of Rihm's 1970s/1980s work. There may even be moments in it where time stands still - more about that later maybe.
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41eFmdBGm2L._SY580_.jpg)
Oh, and while I'm hear, let me make a positive mention for Erscheinung I and II from The Schoenberg Ensemble.
From John Warnaby, Musica Nova 1990 (Tempo Dec 1990) -- comments inter alia on Kein Firmament and related music.
On the other hand, the music of Wolfgang
Rihm will invariably benefit from repeated
performance. It has been assumed that Rihm's
vast output has entailed emphasizing quantity, as
opposed to quality, but the dozen works included
in the Festival, among them five or six major
scores, exemplified a high level of inspiration.
Equally impressive was the range of styles
encompassed by his music, without sacrificing his
creative identity. The problem seems to be that
Rihm's output does not fit comfortably into
recognizable categories; coupled with the fact
that our notorious insularity prevents us from
coming to terms with recent cultural develop-
ments in Europe. The sporadic attention paid to
Rihm shows that our parochial attitudes are not
restricted to composers who are regarded as
disturbing or subversive.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of this
survey of Rihm's achievement was the extent to
which he represents a European, rather than a
specifically German sensibility. During the
course of his lecture, he was asked how he coped
with the legacy of German music, to which he
responded that neither Debussy nor Varese
belonged to the German tradition, while
Schoenberg was Austrian. The point is that he
regards tradition as worldwide, so that his
approach to style and form is not specifically
indebted to either Austro-German symphonism,
nor the recent neo-Wagnerian constructions of
Stockhausen, even though his admiration for the
latter is considerable. Thus Kein Firmament, for
ensemble (1988), is a substantial work in which
the influence of Cage is embodied in the
compositional process, pages of the score being
shuffled in an unpredictable fashion to avoid any
suggestion of continuity. Ultimately, the
influence is expressed in terms of the interplay
between sound and silence, but Rihm's indivi-
duality is still evident in the sounds themselves,
which tend to be strongly accented, and often
emphasize extremes of loudness or softness.
Likewise, Cuts and Dissolves (1977) and the Viola
Concerto (1983) draw heavily on stylistic features ssociated with the transition from 'romanticism'
to 'modernism', but juxtaposed in a manner that
is unique to Rihm. Other works are less
controversial in that they do not rely on such
stylistic allusions. In Umsungen, Nietzsche's text is
set in a remarkably consistent style, which is also
a feature of the new work In's Offene..., which
received its first performance in the concluding
concert. Based on a phrase of H6lderlin, which
neatly encapsulates the composer's notion of
open-ended structures, the work enhances the
timeless quality of high-pitched bell sounds by
using the entire concert space, thereby creating a
remarkably unified score
https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/wolfgang-rihm-a-chiffre-the-1980s-and-beyond-9789461662378-9461662378.html
Knockaert's book on Chiffre
A fremde szenen II here, the disc is streaming
https://elusivedisc.com/the-abegg-trio-abegg-trio-series-vol-20-piano-trioscd/
The CD contains a Killmayer trio which is very fine. Killmayer seems to me a composer close to Rihm, at least the Rihm of the past 30 years.
Atlitz for violin and piano was the seed for Antlitz with overwriting for cello and piano. Both astonishing examples of Adorno's Musique Informelle - the form growing entirely from the music rather than a preexisting grid. Both lovely IMO, especially the cello one, which is fluid, and makes very effective use of the Rihmian disorientation strategy of juxtaposing loud and quiet. Both here - this is a satisfying Rihm CD
(https://d1iiivw74516uk.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJwcmVzdG8tY292ZXItaW1hZ2VzIiwia2V5IjoiODQzOTMxMC4xLmpwZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6MzAwfSwianBlZyI6eyJxdWFsaXR5Ijo2NX0sInRvRm9ybWF0IjoianBlZyJ9LCJ0aW1lc3RhbXAiOjE2MTAyMTg4NDV9)
The final movement of Rihm's 3rd quartet has been associated with all sorts of strange sounding ideas - abstruse ideas about foetal hearing in Plato, for example. Putting all that aside, it is one hell of a piece, and I'd say it takes music to new and exciting places. I have three performances, Minguet, Arditti and Doelen. IMO Minguet have the measure of it.
(https://i.discogs.com/qxPjH_SonUT3o4rqLBg0hwGqaK8CqPpxP5dD1i_vibc/rs:fit/g:sm/q:40/h:300/w:300/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTUxNjA0/NTctMTY0MjY2MjIw/MC05MTU4LmpwZWc.jpeg)
Quote from: Mandryka on December 19, 2022, 06:25:52 AM(https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music30/v4/fc/ed/75/fced7552-e6d8-ed92-95d8-3990b7843b9d/cover.jpg/486x486bb.png)
Really impressive, and I mean really impressive, performance of the music for three stringed instruments. Josjem Ter Haar I know, but I've never come across The Netherlands String Trio before - this appears to be their only recording. Shame that.
The music is, I think, a high point of Rihm's 1970s/1980s work. There may even be moments in it where time stands still - more about that later maybe.
And if you pay attention and pump up the volume, you hear the Janacek in it - only noticed this afternoon!
Back to this this morning, it is even better than in memory. This is a good place for someone who's curious about Rihm's instrumental music to start with.
Hard to find but streaming - you have to search under the name of one of the trio's members - Josje Ter Haar.
She has recorded some other things, including the strange Feldman Trio - I will listen to that recording again soon, see if I can make more out of it than before.
Quote from: Mandryka on June 08, 2023, 12:28:37 AMAnd if you pay attention and pump up the volume, you hear the Janacek in it - only noticed this afternoon!
Back to this this morning, it is even better than in memory. This is a good place for someone who's curious about Rihm's instrumental music to start with.
Hard to find but streaming - you have to search under the name of one of the trio's members - Josje Ter Haar.
She has recorded some other things, including the strange Feldman Trio - I will listen to that recording again soon, see if I can make more out of it than before.
And if you listen carefully and pump up the volume you hear the Janacek in it - never noticed that till this afternoon!
According to Yves Knockert (n the book on Chiffre), the piano solo in Chiffre V is influenced by Debussy's ideas about rhythm.
Can someone explain Debussy's ideas about rhythm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo-A4s7EBPU&ab_channel=EnsembleMusikfabrik-Topic
Quote from: Mandryka on September 02, 2023, 02:45:14 AMAccording to Yves Knockert (n the book on Chiffre), the piano solo in Chiffre V is influenced by Debussy's ideas about rhythm.
Can someone explain Debussy's ideas about rhythm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo-A4s7EBPU&ab_channel=EnsembleMusikfabrik-Topic
It's the idea of flowing rhythm. He said: "Rhythms cannot be contained within bars. It is nonsense to speak of 'simple' and 'composed' time. There should be an interminable flow of them both without seeking to bury the rhythmic patterns."
In conventional music, the time falls within bars with strong and weak beats. So in 4/4 time, beat 1 and 3 are strong, beat 2 and 4 are weak. Debussy is not only challenging that convention but abandoning the concept of a downbeat (the strongest beat 1 in 4/4) with melodic anticipation or sustains (melody and harmony might come before the downbeat or after) and also going more free form ideas of rhythmic relationships to the bars and beats. Other contemporary examples of this would be in Thomas Ades Asyla.
Here, the entire orchestra is off beat. Only the conductor is conducting in strict time. To me, that is an extension of the Debussy rhythmic idea. Like around 23:00 minutes in, if you looked at the score, almost every instrument is playing extremely precisely but their entrances might be a 32nd note before/after the beat and the player next to them maybe 16th note later...for the whole orchestra. It's an interesting approach of extremely precise playing made to sound random and imprecise. Finally crafted controlled chaos.
Thanks
@relm1 - it's just a bit hard for me to relate this to the solo in Chiffra V.
Listen to the way the rhythm in Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses - without repeated patterns of strong and weak beats, in constant evolution, especially towards the end, in the last minute or so.
And then to the piano solo in Chiffre v