German composer Wolfgang Rihm is best known for his operas such as Die Hamletsmaschine and Der Eroberung von Mexico. Apart from that Rihm is also highly regarded for his interesting and well-crafted series of song cycles, such as the Wölfli-Lieder, which makes use of challenging texts and is scored for voice and an instrumental ensemble. Metier's disc Wolfgang Rihm: Lieder is devoted to four cycles Rihm composed for voice and piano only.
This disc features the English soprano and piano duo of
Clare Lesser and David Lesser, who in every way deliver the goods for the benefit of Rihm's music.
Clare Lesser is a pure, "white-voiced" soprano who sings practically all of the songs with no vibrato, although when she goes into full voice here and there, you know it.
Lesser's deliberate under-singing of Rihm's music both sets it apart from traditional German lieder and adds to it an element of tenderness.
Lesser almost sounds like a boy soprano, but the voice has a wounded character that is touching and well suits the texts. The very nature of Rihm's text choices are notably tragic and inseparable from the history of German literary art; Ende der Handschrift, for example, is a 1999 setting of some scattered late verse left behind by Rihm's librettist, onetime Brecht-acolyte Heiner Müller who died in 1995. Lenz-Fragmente (1980) sets some white-hot fragments of texts written by ill-fated German Stürm und Drang poet J.M.R. Lenz and Das Rot is based on poems by one of Lenz' lesser known (and seemingly even more unfortunate) contemporaries, Karoline von Günnerrode. The Drei Gedichte von Monique Thoné (1997) demonstrate Rihm in his most aphoristic and compact idiom; the whole cycle only takes 3:59 to perform and is to an extent reminiscent of Anton Webern. The remaining cycles, while generally quiet, shift between a variety of approaches ranging from harsh explosions of rage to gentle, nostalgic tonality.
Wolfgang Rihm: Lieder is a very attractive collection; to those who feel that the art of German lied died with
Richard Strauss, this Metier disc may well provide new hope and a renewed perspective. The booklet includes all of the song texts and notes in German and English.