Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra

Tutuguri remains an exceptional phenomenon both within the oeuvre of the composer, who died in 2024, and in European music history as a whole. No other work unleashes such unruly elemental forces, and nowhere else do we see rhythm and the awe-inspiring use of percussion take such a central role as in this score, whose final section is performed solely by the six percussionists and amplified choir on tape. 

Rihm’s poème dansé is based on Antonin Artaud’s only radio play Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu [For an end to the judgement of God], his radical reckoning with society, the church and psychiatric hospitals where Artaud was incarcerated for nine years. In this radiophonic piece, the dramatist reveals his concept “theatre of cruelty” intended to evoke existential borderline experiences. His poem on the ritual dances of the Tarahumaras should not become effective merely through the medium of the spoken word: “Everything must be brought precisely into furious order” according to Artaud. And Rihm’s music is indeed in a variety of ways “equally present in every section and every note. It was the text which brought forth this music – a ritualistic image of diverging energies.”

The Lucerne Festival Academy orchestra of excellence devotes its concert to Wolfgang Rihm, who shaped this master school for contemporary music as its artistic director from 2016 until his death. Jörg Widmann has been artistic director since 2026.