Orchestral music by Wolfgang Rihm

Grafenegg Music Festival and Lucerne Festival

Wolfgang Rihm has now composed four works for orchestra carrying the title Verwandlung (transformation). They are connected by musical motifs which recur in the different works in a modified form. The 10-minute Verwandlung III is dedicated to the Staatskapelle Weimar and was given its world première on 15 June 2008. The Philadelphia Orchestra will be performing the revised version with the modified ending at the Grafenegg Festival on 26 August. Charles Dutoit conducts.

Lichtes Spiel, Rihm’s new work for violin and small orchestra, was given its world première in 2010 in New York. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is joined by soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter and conductor Manfred Honeck for two further performances at the festivals in Grafenegg (1 Sept) and Lucerne (3 Sept).

The title of Lichtes Spiel might be translated as “Light Game“ or “Light Play“, and may be taken as a pun on the German expression “leichtes Spiel“, meaning “an easy job“; or what we might call “Child’s Play“. The work was commissioned by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation.