Obituary: Helmuth Rilling, Conductor Closely Identified with Bach, 92

In Thursday’s (2/12) New York Times, David Allen writes, “Helmuth Rilling, an eloquent, widely esteemed German musician who evangelized for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and was the first conductor to record all of that composer’s sacred cantatas, died on Wednesday in Warmbronn, Germany. He was 92…. Rilling, who worked mostly with the chorus and orchestra that he founded, the Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, was initially ‘a Bach lover, not a Bach scholar,’ he said…. He recorded the vocal, orchestral and other works, from the magisterial ‘St. Matthew Passion’ down to the merest chorale settings… Rilling also helped found the Oregon Bach Festival in 1970 and served as its artistic director until 2013…. Rilling was born on May 29, 1933, in Stuttgart, Germany…. He entered the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik in 1952, studying organ and violin … He recorded other classical works and promoted contemporary composers, too. Liszt’s ‘Christus,’ Franck’s ‘Les Béatitudes’ and Honegger’s ‘Jean d’Arc au Bûcher’ were among his more adventurous releases … For the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death in 2000, he commissioned and premiered settings of the Passion story by Wolfgang Rihm, Sofia Gubaidulina, Osvaldo Golijov and Tan Dun. His Oregon Bach Festival recording of Krzysztof Penderecki’s ‘Credo’ (another of Mr. Rilling’s commissions) won the Grammy for best choral performance in 2000.”