WOLFGANG RIHM (b.1952): Ende der Handschrift for Voice and Piano, Nebendraußen for Male Voice and Piano, Rilke: 4 Gedichte for Tenor and Piano.

Description: These song cycles present Rihm in his role as composer of lieder that extend, while remaining firmly in the tradition of, those of the Romantics from Beethoven through Schubert to Wolf. Clear, melodic vocal lines, eloquently setting the texts in terms of richly chromatic longing, with accompaniments that frame the text settings, emphasizing mood and structure without ever competing with them, are the hallmarks of this hugely successful, traditional approach to the question of vocal presentation of the imagery and dramaturgy of poetry that already makes its own music and which may be grateful for, but does not require, further elaboration. Not surprisingly, Rihm adopts a richly chromatic, tonally based vocabulary for these evocative illuminations of the texts. All three works, and especially the Lenz and Rilke cycles, achieve an overarching sense of structure through a cyclical continuity of form that runs through the sequence of poems and lends the works a feeling of continuous expressive narrative. No texts. Christoph Prégardien (tenor), Siegfried Mauser (piano).