In this extraordinary release, violinist Irvine Arditti pays tribute to his late friend, the great composer Wolfgang Rihm, who died in July 2024, in the company of two exceptional musicians: cellist Gianluca Pirisi and pianist Roberta Randolfi.
Together, the trio performs Rihm's seminalFremde Szenen I-III, which epitomise the artistry and imagination of one of the most significant composers of our age.
Irvine Arditti is undoubtedly one of the most important performers in the new music world. He founded the phenomenal Arditti Quartet, for whom Rihm wrote a number of works and with whom Arditti has won many awards, including several Gramophone Awards for recordings of contemporary repertoire. As Arditti says in the artist statement featured in the album booklet, he knew Rihm "for many years and his charm and warmth remain very special to me". He goes on to explain that theFremde Szenen reflect Rihm's love of the music of Robert Schumann, which surfaces throughout the three pieces. Composed in the 1980s, these pieces remind the listener, in Rihm's words, that "the strange, the other is also the place of longing, the place from which the answer comes or could come". Rihm's own language is intermingled with Schumann's Romanticism, but with the textural subtlety and precision so characteristic of Rihm's scores.
This stunning release also features one of Rihm's works for violin and piano,Antlitz('Countenance'), which was composed around ten years after theSzenen, and features expressive pointillist gestures that are pared down to the extreme over the course of the piece, in which silences and echoes create the impression of a series of fleeting sketches.
This is an essential recording for admirers of Wolfgang Rihm, combining the unique insight and experience of Irvine Arditti with the freshness and commitment of the two young artists with whom he collaborates. Though recorded before the sad loss of the composer, this album represents a fitting tribute to an astounding musician.
