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Wolfgang Rihm’s Verwandlung Sees Its American Premiere in San Francisco

Mar. 01, 2006

Hot on the heels of one American premiere, Wolfgang Rihm sees another. On February 16, Alarm Will Sound gave a very successful world premiere of Rihm’s chamber ensemble work Will Sound at Carnegie Hall in New York. Just over two weeks thereafter, the composer sees another stateside premiere when on March 2, the San Francisco Symphony gives the American premiere of Verwandlung (Transformation) (2002).

The notion of transformation is one of the hallmarks of Wolfgang Rihm’s music. Indeed, Rihm considers changes, contrasts, and reactions as inextricable elements of his music, remarking, “each work that I write is in a way a ‘text’ on the preceding piece I had completed. Music is a reply to music...” Within structures (or the lack thereof) of individual works, Rihm sees that “everything is in a state of flux, motion engenders motion. Contrasts spring up all of a sudden, they lead to conflicts, struggle, decisions, solutions, new conflicts, episodes, replies, questions — we are right in the middle of a symphonic text.” Perhaps because of the title’s accentuation of Rihm’s musical thought, Verwandlung has bred offspring in Rihm’s oeuvre, with Verwandlung 2 premiered in 2005 and another Verwandlung in the composer’s future plans.

Wolfgang Rihm is currently in high demand in the American music scene. In addition to Will Sound and Verwandlung, Rihm has seen three other major American premieres in the past twelve months: The New York Philharmonic commissioned and premiered Rihm’s symphonic work Two Other Movements; Ensemble Intercontemporain gave the American premiere of Jagden und Formen also in New York; and the Minnesota Orchestra performed the world premiere of Dritter Dopplegesang.

Further performances of Verwandlung by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Ingo Metzmacher take place on March 3 and 4.

To learn more about Wolfgang Rihm, please visit www.universaledition.com. For more information about the American premiere of Verwandlung, please visit www.sfsymphony.org.

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