Welcome to Spotify, Germany! And Happy 60th Birthday, Wolfgang Rihm

Spotify launched in world's fourth biggest music market Germany today. It is also the 60th birthday of German's leading composer Wolfgang Rihm, whose music is "unpredictable, with wide mood swings and shocking juxtapositions between harsh utter violence and gentle, lovely sounds" (AllMusic).

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I put together a playlist for recordings of Rihm's works on Spotify. It includes the Rihm Edition on Hänssler; his twelve string quartets; the energetic Jagden und Formen (Hunts and Forms); probably his best known work the violin concerto Gesungene Zeit ("Sung Time")played by Anne-Sophie Mutter, and many more. I grouped the tracks by record labels. At the end of the playlist there are three tracks tagged without the composer's name - so you will not be able to find them by searching for Rihm. They are a solo violin piece written for the memory of Yehudi Menuhin; a 32-minute piece for 5 violas composed in 2008, and a farewell march.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Wolfgang Rihm: Discography (296 tracks, total time: 36 hours) Ctrl (CMD)+G to browse in album view.

For new visitors from Germany, please check out my other German composers playlists for complete works of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, R. Strauss, Wagner, Stockhausen; Bruckner and Mahler symphonies, and many more. And of course you should also search Spotify's amazing library to look for your own favourites and forgotten gems; they have almost everything, from Rilke's poetry set to music, to the unparalleled Marlene Dietrich sings Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind (Where Have All The Flowers Gone).