Wolfgang Rhim

The huge scale of Wolfgang Rihm’s output - hundreds of compositions: operas, orchestral pieces, string quartets, song cycles - bewilders. He has, he says, one source, his own subjectivity, and no rules. The range of reference is vast, from a centre somewhere beyond the grand expressivity of late Romanticism and the fracturing of the early twentieth century. Extreme states attract him: poets at the borderlands of sanity, theatrical worlds on the point of exploding or disintegrating, instruments and ensembles pushing at their boundaries. Each piece begins with questions, which it explores. There may not be an answer at the end, but the exploration will have been packed with energy and often searing beauty. Whatever else, it will not leave you cold.

Born in Karlsruhe in 1952, Rihm began his professional life as a composer when still in his teens, following conservatory training and lessons with Stockhausen. His orchestral piece Morphonie - Sektor IV caused a scandal in 1974 for its tonal chords and powerful rhetoric, but during the next decade he established himself at the forefront of the German generation following Stockhausen and Henze. Several of his works, notably the hour-long Jagden und Formen, have been presented by the London Sinfonietta in recent years.