Paul Sacher Stiftung

Aribert Reimann
German composer and pianist

born March 4, 1936, in Berlin, Germany
died March 13, 2024, in Berlin, Germany

Description

Since the success of the highly acclaimed opera Lear (1976–78) at the latest, Aribert Reimann ranks among the best-known contemporary German composers. The son of singer Irmgard Rühle and church musician Wolfgang Reimann grew up in Berlin, where he began composing lieder at an early age. After leaving school, he worked as a répétiteur at the Städtische Oper Berlin. He studied composition with Boris Blacher and Ernst Pepping, as well as the piano with Otto Rausch at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK, formerly Hochschule der Künste Berlin). For many years, he pursued a dual career as a pianist and composer, focussing in particular as a performer on lied accompaniment. In 1974, he was appointed professor of contemporary lied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, before teaching this same discipline at the UdK from 1983 to 1998.

Vocal music occupies a central position in Aribert Reimann’s oeuvre: in addition to lieder with piano accompaniment and compositions for voice and orchestra, he was particularly interested in the musico-dramatic genre, to which he made significant contributions at major European opera houses, including Ein Traumspiel (1963) and Die Gespenstersonate (1982–83) after August Strindberg, Troades (1984–85) after Euripides’ play, Das Schloss (1989–91) after Franz Kafka, Bernarda Albas Haus (1998–2000) after Federico García Lorca, Medea (2007–09) after Franz Grillparzer or the “trilogie lyrique” L’Invisible (2011-17) after Maurice Maeterlinck. Numerous chamber music and orchestral works round off Reimann’s highly diverse œuvre. Drawing on his intensive exploration of the music of the Second Viennese School, the composer has opened up ever broader areas of expression without abandoning the ideal of strict constructive concentration.