Transformation 1
Transformation. Music for orchestra is a work by the German contemporary composer Wolfgang Rihm from 2002 . After he composed a work called " Metamorphosis 2 " in 2005 , the work is known as "Metamorphosis 1".
The work in the context of Rihm's work
Rihm dedicated his work “Metamorphosis”, which was commissioned by the Alte Oper Frankfurt in 2002, to his long-time friend Wilhelm Killmayer . Rihm says of him: "I don't know anyone more knowledgeable than Wilhelm Killmayer. [...] Wilhelm Killmayer embodies genuine radicalism for me." His special appreciation for Killmayer is explained not least by the fact that Killmayer and Rihm, even at the height of serial music, claimed the freedom to orient their work to the sensation as an aesthetic principle. While the tonally composing Killmayer wrote against serial music, which worked with mathematical precision, Rihm dared to present sensitive orchestral sounds to the audience in Donaueschingen , the center for serial music par excellence and the place where his teacher Karlheinz Stockhausen worked (e.g. morphonics for orchestra and Solo String Quartet, 1972). “New subjectivity” or “new inwardness” are the labels that Rihm and other postmodern colleagues such as Manfred Trojahn or Wolfgang von Schweinitz are given.
Two tendencies can be observed in Rihm's work since the nineties: in some works Rihm continues the reduction of melody, harmony and rhythm that he began in the eighties, in others he reverts to the symphonic color palette. So he cares z. B. in the four pieces " Vers une symphonie fleuve " (alluding to Adorno's "Vers une musique informelle") for sonic opulence and reflected virtuosity. “Metamorphosis 1” fits in with the latter tendency.
Course of the work
"Metamorphosis 1" turns out to be a three-part structure, within which a tonal development is built up in many small episodes and then returned to its starting point.
The work begins with a sharp crescendo of the clarinet on the “G” note, which in a sense represents the vanishing point of the freely tonal composition. This is followed in the first part by two-dimensional, warm string sounds, which are replaced by sometimes glassy, sometimes ethereal-light chords, flashing through with individual sound eruptions from the brass. Expressive scraps of melody are then passed on from the solo violin to individual woodwinds (especially bassoon , oboe ). The music becomes more "flowing", more moving, the orchestral mass of sound swells in episodes, reaches opulent orchestral sound, only to be returned to the piano on return - where, often initiated by a rhythmic element, a new episode begins.
In the middle section, the symphonic sound is successively displaced by the percussion instruments. The percussion takes on the musical development for some episodes (strong accelerando ); Of the other instruments, only a held chord remains.
The final part leads back into the sound world of the first part and lets its episodes pass in review. But the set pieces appear shortened, restrained and transfigured - just transformed. There are no major eruptions. After the recurrence of the crescendos from the very first episode, the piece ends, as it were, openly with a succinct clarinet c sharp - perhaps a reference to the beginning of the work, but not a copy. Just transformation.