Wolfgang Rihm, after Helmut Lachenmann the most impressive figure in modern German music, has died at the age of seventy-two. He will be remembered not only for his vast, variegated output, which ranges from almost-pure Romantic strains to all-out dissonant chaos and often embraces both at once (I once had recourse to the phrase "shrapnel from an explosion at the Parsifal factory"), but also for his generous, catholic spirit, which countered the dogmatic strains in postwar European new music. The Wandelweiser composers, among others, were grateful for his support at a time when reactionaries were questioning whether their work should be considered "composition" at all. His music ran toward dark, turbulent spheres, but the man himself exuded a certain joie-de-vivre or Lebenslust. Famously, he communicated with the press by way of a fax machine, which kept interruptions to a minimum.
