German Composer Wolfgang Rihm has Died, Aged 72

The influential composer and educator passed away following a long and serious illness

Born in 1952 in Karlsruhe, South-west Germany, contemporary German composer Wolfgang Rihm wrote over 400 works in many genres of instrumental and vocal music.

He began studying composition with Eugen Werner Velte at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, where Rihm was a professor and lecturer of composition starting in 1985, succeeding Velte.

For many decades, he was closely associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, where he was appointed Composer-in-Residence for the 2024/25 season — a role he will now hold posthumously.

In 1997, he was Composer-in-Residence at the Lucerne Festival, and from 2016, was Artistic Director of its Lucerne Festival Academy, succeeding Pierre Boulez in the role. 

More than 50 of Rihm’s works have been performed at the Lucerne Festival over the past two decades, including many commissioned works and world premieres. 

In 1998, the Berlin Philharmonic performed Rihm’s IN-SCHRIFT with Claudio Abbado, who had a close relationship with Rihm’s music. The Berlin Philharmonic Foundation later commissioned IN-SCHRIFT 2, which won Rihm the prestigious Grawemeyer award in 2014.  

In the early 2000s, Rihm’s Unbenannt IV for orchestra and organ and violin concerto for Carolin Widmann Coll’Arco was performed by Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Rihm’s Horn Concerto written in 2013/14, was dedicated to Berlin Phil’s principal horn player Stefan Dohr.

Other performance highlights included Rihm’s Dis-Kontur performed by Chailly and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra in 2019, and his Requiem-Strophen performed by Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2017 Easter Festival.

Among his accolades included the Reinhold Schneider Prize, Beethoven Prize, the Rolf Liebermann Prize for his opera The Hamlet Machine, the Officer of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.

“Music is not capable of being conceptualized,” Rihm said in the lecture. “We cannot define it using concepts, let alone think of it in concepts, which means nothing other than composing with the concepts postulated,” he continued. “...music is capable of being shaped to a great extent. Its ability to formulate time, space and moment in a plastic way and to compose with its shapes is facilitated precisely by its lack of concepts. It is because music is unbound that it can fill spaces: both a concert hall and the individual soul.”

“It is with sadness and at the same time with deep gratitude that we take leave of one of the greatest artists of our time and of one of Lucerne Festival’s most influential companions,” wrote Lucerne Festival’s Executive and Artistic Director, Michael Haefliger in a tribute. “...His presence in Lucerne as a composer, musical thinker, and musical educator, as well as the intensive exchanges with him: all this has been invaluable and greatly meaningful for all of us. In addition to his encyclopedic knowledge, he was a person of great kindness of heart and much humor, always curious and open. 

“The positive way in which he dealt with his illness was an important example to us all. Encountering or working with him was a tremendously inspiring experience,” he added. “We will forever be deeply committed to the legacy of Wolfgang Rihm's artistic work and his strong personality. Our thoughts are with his wife Verena and with his son Sebastian and daughter Katja.”

Our condolences to Mr. Rihm’s family, friends, students, and colleagues.