Aribert Reimann with my mother, Catherine Gayer, at rehearsal in 1971

Two Thursdays ago my mother called me from Berlin. Normally we talk on Sundays, so I was curious what occasioned this call.

“Aribert Reimann has died”, she told me, with shock in her voice. Aribert was a friend and colleague and contemporary, just a year older than Mom.

He was also one of the great composers of contemporary music. The New York Times obituary – which I will share below – refers to his many well received operas, specifically his widely produced setting of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

My Mom, Catherine Gayer (her maiden name being her stage name), worked countless times with Aribert Reimann. They performed many recitals together – he was also an accomplished pianist – and he composed many pieces for her to sing, including the lead in his second opera (also mentioned in the NYTimes obit) “Melusine”.

Performed in 1971, the Guardian at the time described the musical language of “Melusine” as neo-expresionist, with writing for voices in declamatory style and with demanding coloraturas.

Breezily executing demanding coloraturas was my mother’s bread and butter. Reimann was not the only contemporary composer who took advantage of her ability to sing difficult modern vocal writing with aplomb. But he composed more for her than all the others.

Mom, kneeling, as Melusine, with Martha Mödl behind her.

YouTube has the complete song cycle “6 Poems by Sylvia Plath” Reimann composed for Mom to sing. I’ll share the first piece here, but all 6 as well as both parts of “Nachtstücke” are accessible.

YouTube also has – in two parts – the recording of a recital Reimann and Mom performed in 1973. I’ll start you off with the first part here:

Although I saw my mother and Aribert Reimann work together again and again throughout my childhood, I didn’t have much of a relationship with him myself. The one anecdote I can think of is going with my parents to a party at his home, when I was around 14 years old. In 1981 or 1982.

He wasn’t the first of whom I knew at the time that he was homosexual, but I believe this was the first time I was knowingly in the home of a partnered homosexual. I was the only teenager there – my parents often took me along to parties and gatherings where everyone else was an adult – and I started wandering around the very large pre-war Berlin apartment.

I was particularly taken by some overtly homoerotic art or photography, and was seen staring at it by Aribert’s boyfriend. I felt caught as he looked the other way.

Not much of a story perhaps, but an indelible memory nonetheless.

Here is the obituary from the New York Times:

Aribert Reimann, Masterful German Opera Composer, Is Dead at 88

His works, which were radically individual, were among the most celebrated of the late 20th and early 21st century.

By A.J. Goldmann

A.J. Goldmann is an American journalist who writes about European arts and culture. He is based in Munich.

Published March 19, 2024 – Updated March 22, 2024

“Aribert Reimann, whose powerful operas based on works by Shakespeare, Kafka, Lorca and others made him one of the most significant opera composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, died on Wednesday in Berlin. He was 88.

His publisher, Schott Music, announced the death.