Around the Music Festival

German composer Aribert Reimann died in Berlin on March 13 at the age of 88. Known for his operas based on Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Kafka’s “The Castle,” he was one of the leading figures in postwar German composition.

Born in Berlin and raised in a family with a choral conductor father and oratorio singer mother, she studied at the Berlin University of the Arts under Boris Blacher and others. He studied composition, counterpoint, and piano, and his early works include a ballet written in 1959 to a libretto by Günter Grass.

Later, he worked as a chorepetitore at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and became known as an accompanist for the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. In 1978, at the suggestion of Fischer-Dieskau, he presented “King Lear,” which brought him instant fame.

From 1983 to 1998, he taught contemporary song at his alma mater, and in 1992 he produced an opera based on Kafka’s “The Castle. In 2010, he was commissioned by the Vienna State Opera to perform a work based on the third part of Franz Grillparzer’s three-part poem “The Golden Fleece,” “Medea,” which is based on the famous Greek tragedy “Princess Media,” and it attracted a great deal of attention.

He has received numerous awards, including the State Order of Merit of Berlin (1988), the Federal Cross of Merit (1995), the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2011), and the German Theater Prize “Faust” for his life work (2018).

PHOTO：Gaby Gerster