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The ZKO shows us that Wolfgang Rihm's Jakob Lenz has lost none of its power, more than 40 years on. 

Should perfection be an end in itself? Franz Welser-Möst and his Clevelanders demonstrate in works by Wolfgang Rihm and Schubert why they may have no technical weaknesses, but still leave something to be desired.

Rihm is probably Germany’s most famous living composer, and he has a reputation for cerebral intellectualism in his music. That’s admirable, but it doesn’t make him approachable. 

Gatti and the Concertgebouw produce ravishing beauty in Bruckner 9; Rihm's In-Schrift fails to convince.

Lothar Koenigs conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in some highly horizontal-oriented Bruckner and the UK première of a genial piano concerto from Wolfgang Rihm with soloist Nicolas Hodges

Thomas Hengelbrock and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra open Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie concert-hall with a traversal of music through the ages, from a Renaissance motet to Wolfgang Rihm's latest work.

Nicholas Collon and his Aurora Orchestra remind us that classical music is still made by us, for us, in Rihm, Strauss and Mozart.

Christoph Eschenbach returned to the Concertgebouw with another smashing success, leading the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme of Beethoven, Brahms, and Rihm.

The Lucerne Festival recently celebrated the life and musical achievement of the great French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Konwitschny's bold approach to Rihm's musical dialectic surprises, challenges, and bewilders. The glorious soundscape created in the Felsenreitschule makes this Eroberung von Mexico a unique, unmissable operatic experience. 

In a thoroughly riveting recital at the Concertgebouw, soprano Anna Prohaska probes Ophelia’s psyche through songs from the nineteenth century onwards.

Just when we were all having so much fun with the Symphoniker, mum and dad came home and ruined the party.

Fine renditions of Brahms's Haydn Variations and Strauss's Death and Transfiguration and Till Eulenspiegel more than compensate for an underwhelming rendition of Rihm's Lichtes Spiel in the Concertgebouw's performance at the Berlin Festival.

Marino Formenti only briefly introduced his eclectic whirlwind recital, “Liszt Inspections”, before calling out “Good luck!” and diving into one of the most attention-grabbing sequences of music that I’ve ever witnessed.

Celebrating 40 years of championing the contemporary string quartet, the Arditti Quartet concluded a day-long marathon with six quartets from composers around the globe. Polished beyond belief, they gave mesmerising performances.

Principal Guest Conductor Markus Stenz conducted a pair of very different works by fellow Germans, both featuring a strong nod towards Britain. The music spoke for itself, with a beautiful and original Brahms Requiem the highlight of the evening.The title of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem is quite significant.

The inability of human beings to communicate or even empathise, and the monstrous consequences that gap in misunderstanding leads to, is the foundational idea of Die Eroberung von Mexico, and Wolfgang Rihm’s dense and frequently brilliant music.

As a non-composer, I always find it a little disconcerting when composers completely disagree with me about new music. And when I talk to two composers separately, and they offer matching opinions opposed to my own – as happened last night at the Wigmore Hall – I definitely end up feeling slightly wrong-footed.

In the cosy confines of a packed Hampstead Theatre ENO’s English adaptation of Jacob Lenz produced an exciting, entertaining and emotionally draining 70 minutes of opera. Premiered in 1979 this is Rihm’s account of Sturm und Drang writer Jakob Lenz’s descent into madness.

It’s quite rare nowadays to rock up to a concert having absolutely no prior knowledge of the music you’re about to hear. Ticket prices, an abundance of established concert repertoire, and an understandable reflex to ‘play it safe’ all contribute to our penchant for the known in the concert hall.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s life was not that of an isolated contemplative but rather full of personal frustration, eventually ending in syphilitic madness. While his work has been often linked with music--most notably in his relationship with Wagner and Richard Strauss’s tone poem based on Also sprach Zarathustra--making his life into an opera may seem a dubious proposition.