The School mourns the loss of Prof Dr h.c. Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm died on 27 July 2024 at the age of 72 in Ettlingen after a long and serious illness.
Wolfgang Rihm, born in Karlsruhe in 1952, began composing at the age of eleven, studying composition with Eugen Werner Velte at the University of Music in Karlsruhe while still at school and graduated in 1972 at the same time as taking his school-leaving exams. He then studied composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and with Klaus Huber and musicology with Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht in Freiburg.
He was honoured early on with numerous prizes for his musical work. He received the Rolf Liebermann Prize for ‘Die Hamletmaschine’ in 1986 and was awarded scholarships from the Berlin Art Prize, the City of Hamburg, the Villa Massimo in Rome and the Cité des Arts in Paris, among others. Wolfgang Rihm has held the Federal Cross of Merit since 1989 and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Free University of Berlin in 1998. In 2001, he was appointed ‘Officier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ by the French Foreign Ministry. In 2003 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, in 2004 he was awarded the Medal of Merit of the State of Baden-Württemberg and in 2011 the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
His compositional output comprises over 600 works. Wolfgang Rihm devoted himself to almost all genres of instrumental and vocal music and focused on music theatre. He was composer-in-residence at the Musikfestwochen Luzern, the Salzburg Festival, the Festival Musica in Strasbourg and was to become composer-in-residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker in the 2024/25 season.
On the occasion of its 50th anniversary in November 2000, the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin honoured Prof. Wolfgang Rihm with the title of Honorary Senator of the school for his services to the shaping and reorientation of the school in the 1990s.
Wolfgang Rihm began his extensive teaching activities at the age of 21 and became a lecturer at the Karlsruhe University of Music, and was the first lecturer at the Darmstadt Summer Course in 1978. In 1985, he became Professor of Composition at the Karlsruhe University of Music.
Wolfgang Rihm left his mark on generations of budding musicians. We will always remember him as a warm-hearted and humorous artist, colleague and teacher who was consistent but also open to dialogue. Wolfgang Rihm was present in the joint projects of the Eisler composition classes with the Karlsruhe University of Music whenever possible and was closely associated with our students.
We are grateful for the time we spent together with him and the opportunities our students and professors had to work with him. Our sincere condolences go out to all those who were close to him. We will honour his memory with great reverence through his words and works.
Prof Andrea Tober
President of the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin
Prof Jörg Mainka
Vice-President and Head of Department D, Piano, Composition, Sciences