Wolfgang Rihm: Two national premières

Rom and Bucharest

On 16 April Wolfgang Rihm’s orchestral work Das Lesen der Schrift will receive its first Portuguese performance. The work consists of four movements which – as here – can be performed as interludes to the movements of Brahms’s German Requiem. The Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música is conducted by Christoph König. In May, Christoph Adt will be performing the work with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra in Bucharest.

In an interview with Jörg Königsdorf, Rihm said:

“The original idea, however, goes back a long way: Das Lesen der Schrift refers to the process of decoding, gradually becoming aware of textual relationships encapsulated in symbols. It can also be a metaphor of decoding a musical text.”