Wolfgang Rihm
Eine Stimme 1–3
Short instrumentation: 1 0 1 0 - 0 0 0 0 - perc(6), pno, vla, vc, cb
Duration: 15'
Solos:
mezzo-soprano
Instrumentation details:
flute (+picc)
clarinet in A (+cl(Eb))
1st percussion
2nd percussion
3rd percussion
4th percussion
5th percussion
6th percussion
piano
viola
violoncello
contrabass
Rihm - Eine Stimme 1–3 for mezzo-soprano and ensemble
Translation, reprints and more
Wolfgang Rihm
Rihm: Eine Stimme 1-3Orchestration: for mezzo-soprano and ensemble
Type: Studienpartitur
Language: Vokalisen
Audio preview
Work introduction
Eine Stimme 1-3 is an extension of Eine Stimme premiered on 19 September 2004 at the festival Musica in Strasbourg. It met with enthusiasm all around: the players, the public and the artistic leadership of the festival. The latter approached Wolfgang Rihm there and then with the idea of an “encore”. The composer responded by adding two more movements which likewise involved the two major ensembles resident in the city: Accroche Note with its soloist Françoise Kubler as well as Les Percussions de Strasbourg. The world premiere took place the year after the first performance of Eine Stimme.
The critic of the Badische Neueste Nachrichten commented:
“The piece takes us to a sombre sound forest with occasional clearings shot through with dazzling flashes of sound colours. The voice emerges after several minutes of marimba tremolo to guide us to ever more tangled regions. It needs no text to be carried along by the waves emanating from the instruments. Rihm achieves fascinating transitions of instrumental sound and the most direct musical expression, prolonged breath and life energy-turned-sound which create a fairy-tale like, delicately unreal atmosphere.”