(Publicity photo via Reimann’s publisher Schott Music.)
Somehow I missed the news that one of my favorites passed in March at the age of 88.
The postwar surge of abstract and dissonant composition remains daunting. Much of this music is reserved for specialists and super fans committed to esoterica.
One who managed to take aggressive atonality into comparatively poetic regions was Aribert Reimann. Even in early works from the 1950s, Reimann clearly wanted the listener to “get it.” The dodecaphonic Piano Sonata was written in 1958, when the composer was 21 or 22. Unlike most twelve-tone piano music, the work is repetitive and rhythmic, even syncopated, with a bit of a silly charm. The final bars of the third movement sonata evaporate as an ironic Viennese waltz.
In time Reimann concluded that the best way to combine legible emotion with atonality was through the use of the human voice. A sense of practicality informed Reimann’s career: “What sounds good when sung?” Part of his process was as pianist/accompanist, recording many albums of traditional lieder with famous names. He took this experience into his private workshop of dreams, and eventually could lay claim to be one of the very greatest opera and lieder composers of the last 50 years.
There are two stunning videos on YouTube with countertenor Daichi Fujiki singing arias from Reimann operas. Ryusuke Numajiri conducts the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. The camera work is excellent, one can see clearly the outrageous orchestration in action as Fujiki drives himself to the brink.
From Medea (2010):
From Lear (1978, Reimann’s most famous work):
Nine Sonnets of Louise Labé was recorded by mezzo-soprano Liat Himmelheber and pianist Axel Bauni for a now-obscure early ‘90s Wergo CD.
Himmelheber’s opening soliloquy in “O beaus yeus bruns, ô regars destournez” is one of my favorites passages of recorded sound. I know of no other work that is both so lyrical and so dissonant, and the intensity only increases after the piano enters in chaotic support.
(The work is not on the streaming services, so here is an illegal upload of the first movement)
The topic of Labe’s 24 sonnets is erotic desire, both requited and unrequited. The date of publication was 1555, and Labé ended with a note telling her contemporaries, “Do not reproach me, ladies, if I’ve loved.” For his 1986 song cycle, Reimann updates the sequence, concluding with, “Kiss me, kiss me again, and then kiss.”
The other Reimann work I know well has never seen digital issue, the 1972 Konzert für Klavier und 19 Spieler (Concerto for piano and 19 players), also on Wergo. Klaus Billing is the pianist. This great piece is now uploaded to YouTube.
When I first got this Wergo LP I listened to it all the time. There’s something about Reimann’s brilliant lines that really move me. For all the fast-moving and disjointed context, the notes are passionate and chosen just so.
This is a nice “transmission”, to read a reflection by a passionate and articulate listener. Life is good.