Wolfgang Rihm: String Quartets - Im Innersten (Third String Quartet, in 6 Movements) / Eighth String Quartet (in One Movement) / Untitled (Fifth String Quartet, in One Movement) - Arditti String Quartet

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Wolfgang Rihm is one of Germany's most prominent and prolific living composers, having written for nearly every genre from chamber operas, to symphonies, to songs. But what is most characteristic about Rihm's music is that it is extremely difficult characterize. With discernible influences including serialism, romantic harmony, and a reduced language similar to that of the late Luigi Nono, Rihm is able to integrate these elements into his music to suit his compositional needs. This disc of three string quartets is an excellent introduction to Rihm's music because the three works span a period in Rihm's career where one can see the transition from one style to the next, culminating in the extremely engaging Eighth String Quartet. In the hands of a lesser composer, the use of preexisting styles can deteriorate into shallow and ironic post-modern pastiche, but for Rihm it only adds to the richness and depth of his music. --Kirk Noreen

Wolfgang Rihm: String Quartets - Im Innersten (Third String Quartet, in 6 Movements) / Eighth String Quartet (in One Movement) / Untitled (Fifth String Quartet, in One Movement) - Arditti String Quartet,Wolfgang Rihm,David Alberman,Irvine Arditti,Garth Knox,Rohan de Saram,Arditti String Quartet,Disques Montaigne,Classical

Average customer rating: Rihm's quartets are inchoate As if Brahms had lived into the Twentieth Century. . .

Wolfgang Rihm: String Quartets 3, 8 & 5 Manufacturer: Disques Montaigne ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music Rihm, Wolfgang | ( R ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music Chamber Music | Forms & Genres | Classical (c.1770-1830) | Historical Periods | Classical | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music Classical | Imports | Stores | Music ASIN: B00004WKJJ Release Date: 2000-11-14

Tracks:

1. III. St Qt: I.Schroff
2. III. St Qt: II.
3. III. St Qt: III.
4. III. St Qt: IV.
5. III. St Qt: V. Zwischenspiel, Senza Tempo
6. III St Qt: VI. - Arditti Str Qt A
7. III St Qt: VII.
8. VIII. St Qt: Achtes Streichquartett
9. V. St Qt: Ohne Titel

Customer Reviews:

Rihm's quartets are inchoate.......2006-07-05

Another year, another installment of Rihm's complete string quartets on Col Legno performed by the Minguet Quintett, and another listen to this Arditti Quartet disc, wondering -- do I want to hear more of Rihm's quartets? And once again, the answer is no. Rihm has always been an expressionist, a musical anarchist. He pugnaciously avoids any sort of system, and sees the process of composing as more important than a finished structure. I am a huge fan of free improvisation, but for a composer, I believe this is a gamble that only the rarest of souls (Morton Feldman!) can win. I don't like Cage, and I suspect I tend not to like Rihm for the same reason -- they both (largely) fail to project a compelling vision in their music other than anarchistic-lack-of-vision-as-a-virtue.

Included here are Quartets No. 3, 5 and 8 (not No. 1). No. 3 is included on Col Legno's Volume One (2003), No. 5 is on Volume Two (2004), and No. 8 is on Volume Three, (2005), leaving only the new Volume Four (2006), with No. 10 and 12 that I haven't heard anything from. No. 3 juxtaposes harsh avant-garde sounds with Romantic passages. No. 5 is all harsh momentum, the best of the three quartets performed here by the Ardittis, relentless and exhausting. No. 8 is very much influenced by Nono's 1980 String Quartet, low-volume and fragmented.

If this Montaigne disc is now truly deleted and unavailable, I would recommend the Col Legno Volume Two with Quartets No. 5 and 6 if you want to investigate Rihm's string quartets. Anyone who hears the new Volume Four, let me know what you think -- are they an improvement over the earlier quartets?

As if Brahms had lived into the Twentieth Century. . ........2000-12-28

Wolfgang Rihm has developed an impressive musical language,brutally emotive, grotesque, overly dramatic,extreme,he knows the modernist language of extended timbre very well, especially here for strings, the Am Steg, at the bridge, snarls, gut pumps,pizzocati of sounds,scraps, tortured screams , like fingernails and eyeballs on the blackboard.The violin bow is equally an instrument of miltant form. Conceptually as well he makes the the rigours, the more intellectual currents of post-modernity work for him,although all his music adheres to conservative structural traditions. He's not afraid of overtaxing his welcome once you accept this musical offering, nor being predictable and obvious when it serves musical and emotive ends.

The Third Quartet, (Arditti has shopped this around the world), it is of Mahlerian lengths with unabashedly lyrical touching moments after the opening abbatoir of rough,gruff overly violent stuff, double stopped attacks,breaks,hammerings,convulsive melodies and anxiety smears of the strings. It is incredible the shear amount of sound Arditti is able to summon for this symphony for string quartet. It is a relatively early work from the Seventies, when Rihm was just beginning to be known. The fact that since that time he as ascending quite handsomely in the world of the theatre and opera is obvious. This musical speaks and searchings for deep,dark,distrubing imagery. The Fifth Quartet, in one movement without a programmatic title is suppose to suggest a world of pure abstraction, but it is not,it is a world of obvious abstraction,where we hear locomotive like summoning,stopping qickly for sharp contrast, it may remind you of a torture session,well beyond the Expressionism of Beckmann,Nolde,or Kiefer.

Arditti simply plays the hell out of this music,it is a match made in Hell,or Heaven.

Average customer rating: Not my favorite Rihm,great Arditti playing,balanced storms

Wolfgang Rihm: String Quartets - Im Innersten (Third String Quartet, in 6 Movements) / Eighth String Quartet (in One Movement) / Untitled (Fifth String Quartet, in One Movement) - Arditti String Quartet Irvine Arditti , Garth Knox , Rohan de Saram , and Arditti String Quartet Manufacturer: Disques Montaigne ProductGroup: Music Binding: Audio CD Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music Rihm, Wolfgang | ( R ) | Featured Composers, A-Z | Classical | Styles | Music General | Classical | Styles | Music ASIN: B000003VQ7 Release Date: 1994-04-26

Tracks:

1. 5th Str Qt: Intro
2. 5th Str Qt: Giocoso
3. 5th Str Qt: Interlude I
4. 5th Str Qt: Lento Espressivo
5. 5th Str Qt: Interlude II
6. 5th Str Qt: Presto Scorrevole
7. 5th Str Qt: Interlude III
8. 5th Str Qt: Allegro Energico
9. 5th Str Qt: Interlude IV
10. 5th Str Qt: Adagio Sereno
11. 5th Str Qt: Interlude V
12. 5th Str Qt: Capriccioso
13. 90+ - Ursula Oppens
14. Son: Moderato - Rohan De Saram/Ursula Oppens
15. Son: Vivace, Molto Leggiero - Rohan De Saram/Ursula Oppens
16. Son: Adagio - Rohan De Saram/Ursula Oppens
17. Son: Allegro - Rohan De Saram/Ursula Oppens
18. Figment - ROhan De Saram
19. Duo - Irvine Arditti/Ursula Oppens
20. Fragment

Amazon.com

Wolfgang Rihm is one of Germany's most prominent and prolific living composers, having written for nearly every genre from chamber operas, to symphonies, to songs. But what is most characteristic about Rihm's music is that it is extremely difficult characterize. With discernible influences including serialism, romantic harmony, and a reduced language similar to that of the late Luigi Nono, Rihm is able to integrate these elements into his music to suit his compositional needs. This disc of three string quartets is an excellent introduction to Rihm's music because the three works span a period in Rihm's career where one can see the transition from one style to the next, culminating in the extremely engaging Eighth String Quartet. In the hands of a lesser composer, the use of preexisting styles can deteriorate into shallow and ironic post-modern pastiche, but for Rihm it only adds to the richness and depth of his music. --Kirk Noreen

Customer Reviews:

Not my favorite Rihm,great Arditti playing,balanced storms.......1999-04-09

Germany has always had a plurality of artisitic styles and musical languages. It is only now with the advent postmodernity that these different expressive strains are being encouraged. And Rihm represents the reactionary trend away from the vigours of modernity without really being anti-modernist, like having your cake and eating it to. Rihm's creativity tapped into Neo-Expressionism, long a respected expressive path in Germany dating back to the early years of this century. These "Quartets" here are excellent examples of Rihm's musical language, however I prefer his "Symphonies" and "Operas" where his musically graphic,brutal and impassioned imagination can run wild. The "Quartets" by contrast are more introspective, The "Third Quartet" with its heavenly length and ideology reflecting a "life-to death" lifeworld perspective is like a modern Grimm's Tale The Arditti are well suited for this music knowing the full compass of the extended world of strings from the depths of darkness,their lower strings, to spiky screeching upper registers are all visited for these abstract dramas. The Arditti in a cross-handed way are not an impassioned bunch,so the music has an expressive distance which serves Rihm well oddly enough. Too much bursting irrationality would mar his work. You always need a balance and a vision of where the excesses in the music occur. In listening you might catch fragments or suggestions of the pained lyricism of Schubert,or the darker moments in Mahler. But Rihm is on top, you always know where he begins and the others leave off, not every good postmodernist can say that with conviction.

Track Listings:

1. Works for Lute & Guitar
2. Works of Toyohiko Satoh
3. 3 Cello Sonatas
4. 3 Romantic Waltzes
5. 6 Concertos for Organ & 6 Instruments
6. 6 Cti for Bassoon & Strings
7. 6 Sonatas for Pianoforte
8. Airs & Dances of Old Europe
9. Artur Schnabel, Vol. 1: Piano Piece in Seven Movements; Piano Sonata
10. At the End of the Old Regime

Track Listings

track listings

Track Listings

Altered and Proud [Import]

Debussy and Ravel:String Quartets

Come on In

Music: Wheatus [Explicit Lyrics]

F**k the Golden Youth [Explicit Lyrics] [Import]

Christmas Album [Import]

Curiously Classical Curious George

Concierti De Aranjuez

Dare to Be Small

Best of Ricky Martin

Can Box Music (Live 1971-77) [Live]

Dream Corrosion [Import]

Everytime [CD-single]

Xenakis: Orchestral Works & Chamber Music

A Walk Across the Rooftops