Wolfgang Rihm, a prolific and influential contemporary composer with over 500 works to his name, has died at 72, leaving a lasting legacy in European music.
He began composing at the age of eleven – and was later considered one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers in Europe. Now Wolfgang Rihm is dead. He leaves behind hundreds of works.
As his Austrian music publisher and his wife announced, composer Wolfgang Rihm died last night at the age of 72 in Ettlingen near Karlsruhe. Rihm was one of the most frequently performed contemporary composers in Europe.
The Karlsruhe native left behind well over 500 works, including operas and large orchestral works, chamber music, musical theater and vocal pieces. Well-known works include “The Hamlet Machine”, “Jakob Lenz”, “Dionysos”, “Sub-Kontur” and “Jagden und Formen”, as well as numerous songs for voice and piano. Rihm wrote a commissioned composition for the opening of the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie in 2017 .
Rihm made his first attempts at composition at the age of eleven. Later, while still a student, he studied composition at the Karlsruhe University of Music (HfM) under Eugen Werner Velte and intensively studied the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern.
He went to Cologne to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen. In 1985 he succeeded his former teacher Velte as professor of composition at the HfM. Rihm celebrated his breakthrough in 1974 at the Donaueschinger Musiktage with the premiere of the orchestral piece “Morphonie”.
Cultural-political commitment and honours
Rihm was also known for his commitment to cultural politics. He was a member of the executive board of the German Composers’ Association, the German Music Council, a member of the board of trustees of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation and a member of the GEMA supervisory board.
Rihm received numerous honors in the course of his life, including an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin (1998) and the French order “Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” (2001). The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra wants to honor Rihm and his works with a so-called Composer-in-Residency in the upcoming 2024/2025 season.
