One of the most beautiful aspects of my work as artistic director of the NTR ZaterdagMatinee has always been that I got to know the Bachs and the Beethovens of our own time up close. Some personalities impressed me especially because of their musical talent. Others turned out to be extraordinarily nice and sensitive people as well. But in all those years, I have only met one Wolfgang Rihm. Of course, not only in his native country, but also far beyond, this master who died on Saturday, July 27, 2024, was regarded as one of the greatest composers of our time. Everyone who knew him also knows that Rihm's erudition was hardly of this world. But was it to be expected that someone of such artistic and intellectual stature would also turn out to be an extremely approachable, courteous, empathetic, humorous and courageous person? It seems like too much of a good thing, but Wolfgang Rihm was the living proof that all these qualities could be united in one person. I don't remember exactly when I began to immerse myself in the music of Wolfgang Rihm. What I heard from him was for me living proof that Rihm, like no other, was able to organically connect tradition and innovation, craftsmanship and originality in his music. He knew just about the entire Western music history by heart and had an insatiable curiosity about the work of his composing contemporaries. He absorbed everything and investigated it for new possible applications. He expressed his impressions with utmost eloquence, could be critical, but never spoke disparagingly of his fellow artists. Hölderlin's adage 'Alles prüfe der Mensch' could have been Rihm's motto. This also applied to his own work: he regularly returned to his older compositions to see what alternative developments of the musical material were still possible. He was sometimes harshly criticized for this creative recycling, but mainly by critics who did not understand what drove him at heart. Rihm's open ear for the sounds of his predecessors was also initially greatly distrusted by some critics. Even fascism was accused of him, because he dared to emphasize that music 'had to be full of emotion', a dangerously romantic idea according to some modern thinkers. Rihm paid little attention to all this criticism. He wanted to know where he came from ("woher ich komme"), but found it even more important to know where he was going ("wohin ich gehe").
Wolfgang Rihm (1952-2024)[/caption] In 2009, I decided to place the Matinee season 2011-2012, which I was still programming, under the sign of the oeuvre of Wolfgang Rihm, which in my opinion was far too little known in the Netherlands. That oeuvre already counted more than 400 titles for the most diverse ensembles. I had my own favorites, but of course I also wanted to know which works Rihm himself would like to hear in Het Concertgebouw. I called him and was soon able to visit him at his home in Karlsruhe.
It was a meeting I would never forget. The house itself made a deep impression, with endless rows of bookshelves reaching to the ceiling in every room I saw. The conversation quickly moved to literature, visual arts, philosophy and everything that inspired him. But Rihm also had a Burgundian side and knew exactly where you could eat well. I meanwhile put one programmatic idea after another to him. He was all relief that his music would not be presented in a modernist reserve, but precisely in meaningful combinations with great masterworks from a further past. Thus the wildly expressionistic monodrama Das Gehege found a place alongside Richard Strauss's equally charged one-act opera Salome. An extremely demanding program for which I was able to enthuse Edo de Waart and the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, and which is really only conceivable in the Matinee in the Netherlands. But the combinations with Berg, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann or Schreker also came about in good consultation with the master himself. On commission from the Matinee, Rihm composed Der Maler träumt, to a text by the German painter Max Beckmann (1884-1950) whom he so admired. The fact that Beckmann lived and worked in Amsterdam for more than ten years made it almost a duty in Rihm's eyes that he compose precisely this work for the Amsterdam Matinee series. After all, Rihm believed that the music of his star pupil Jörg Widmann should not be missing from the series either. And so the Matinee season 2011-2012 came about, which was named Rihm-Resonanz. Rihm traveled to Amsterdam several times and enjoyed the warm response his music received from the Matinee audience. During rehearsals, he encouraged the musicians to give their best. He had no patience with the sterile approach that sometimes still automatically rears its head when contemporary music is on the stands. "Singen, singen, singen, lange Linien!", I heard him call out to the musicians on stage.
Wolfgang Rihm with Belgian conductor Karel Deseure in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw[/caption]
Rihm was convinced that a series like the Matinee would always retain its value. Whenever I sighed that art and culture seemed to matter less and less in the Netherlands, he looked at me intently and said to me: "Man darf nicht pessimistisch sein!" That's how he stood in professional and personal life. And so he fought the disease that would ultimately prove fatal to him without complaint. Wolfgang Rihm was only 72 years old. Everyone who knew him will miss him terribly. He lives on in his impressive oeuvre.
Kees Vlaardingerbroek Artistic director NTR ZaterdagMatinee from 2006 to 2023 (see here the interview I had with him in August 2021).