ABSTRACT
The touchstone of Rihm's aesthetic is an ideal of freedom, unrestricted by a system or by rules; a perspective that departs significantly from the constructionist aesthetic of high modernism, but not necessarily from its achievements. Rihm's compositional outlook is an inclusive one capable of embracing whatever style or sound fits his needs. His willingness to handle large forces and big sonorities in, for example, the early orchestral works Dis Kontur and Sub Kontur can be attributed both to the Mahler revival that took place in the 1970s and to the feel for proportion and texture gained from his one-time teacher, Stockhausen.'
