Wolfgang Rihm, Prolific Contemporary Classical Music Composer, Dies at 72

Wolfgang Rihm, a composer whose forceful, shape-shifting output reinvigorated contemporary classical music, died on Saturday in Ettlingen, Germany. He was 72.

His death, in a hospice outside the city of Karlsruhe, where he lived, was announced in a statement by his publisher, Universal Edition. It did not specify a cause, but Mr. Rihm had been treated for cancer since 2017. His illness and his efforts to compose despite it were the subject of a 2020 German documentary.

Mr. Rihm was considered one of the most original and prolific musical voices in Europe and the most performed German composer of contemporary classical music. Among his prominent commissions was “Reminiszenz,” an “arresting, broody orchestral song cycle,” as Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim described it in The New York Times. The work, for a tenor and large orchestra, premiered at the 2017 opening of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg.

Mr. Rihm composed more than 500 works, though the exact number remains unclear because some pieces have not yet been published.

He received the 2003 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, the 2010 Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale and the 2014 Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music, among many other awards. He was named composer in residence for the 2024-25 season at the Berlin Philharmonic.

“At times he was even like a court composer” for Germany, the music critic Manuel Brug wrote in Die Welt.