WOLFGANG RIHM (b.1952): Music for Oboe and Orchestra (Alexander Ott [oboe]; Hans Zender [conductor]), Styx und Lethe for Cello and Orchestra (Lucas Fels [cello], Zender), Dritte Musik for Violin and Orchestra (Gottfried Schneider [violin], Michael Gielen [conductor]), Erster Doppelgesang for Viola, Cello and Orchestra I (Hirofumi Fukai [viiola], Walter Grimmer [cello], Jan Latham-Koenig [conductor]).

Description: In these concertante works, the vein of late-romanticism that has become more and more prominent in Rihm's work over the past few decades is very much in evidence, and the long, lyrical melodic lines given to the soloist in Music for Oboe contain many passages of sheerly beautiful music. Strange sounds and alternative techniques are not much used, though one is reminded - when necessary - that Rihm has all the resources of Darmstadt innovation at his disposal for dramatic effect. While undeniably modern and not lacking in a gratifying degree of complexity he has placed his formidable technique at the disposal of descriptive tone-poetry, highly charged with emotional expression. Styx und Lethe, tense and dark-toned, and uncompromisingly virtuosic for the soloist throughout, could almost be program-music, so strong is its narrative sense. Dritte Musik inventively employs some unusual orchestration to frame an extended and eloquent soliloquy for the soloist, while the volatile Doppelgesang makes ingenious play of the tension between the two solo 'voices', the unusual combination of the two middle-voiced strings in a concertante context. Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden und Freiberg.