Paul Sacher
Paul Sacher ( born April 28, 1906 in Basel, † May 26, 1999 ) was a Swiss conductor and patron.
Biography
Sacher studied musicology with Karl Nef and conducting with Felix Weingartner and did already in this period as the founder of the Basel Chamber Orchestra ( BCO ) and the local chapter of the Basel International Society for Contemporary Music ( ISCM ) out. Sacher married Maja Hoffmann - Stehlin in 1934, the widow of Emanuel Hoffmann, son of Fritz Hoffmann -La Roche, founder of the eponymous pharmaceutical company Hoffmann -La Roche. The material resources associated with it enabled him to support significant, often befriended, composers such as Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern and Alfredo Casella with composition commissions; thus he promoted the music of the 20th century decisively. The he founded the Paul Sacher Foundation currently manages the estate of composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern.
Sacher served as conductor premieres promoted by his works, 1937 Bartok's " Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta ," 1940, Ernst Krenek's " Symphonic Pieces for String Orchestra " in 1947 Stravinsky's " Concerto en Ré ", 1958 Hans Werner Henze's " Sonata per impossible ".
Other contractors were Conrad Beck, Harrison Birtwistle, Boris Blacher, Willy Burkhard, Elliott Carter, Alfredo Casella, Henri Dutilleux, Wolfgang Fortner, Alberto Ginastera, Cristobal Halffter, Paul Hindemith, Heinz Holliger, Arthur Honegger, Jacques Ibert, Witold Lutosławski, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Frank Martin, Bohuslav Martinů, Peter Mieg, Wolfgang Rihm, Rolf Urs Ringger, Michael Tippett, Sándor Veress, Wladimir Vogel, Jürg Wyttenbach and more. By the late-romantic music of Richard Strauss Sacher had no affinity, however he has to help him in his economic and financial distress after the German collapse, he issued an order for the "Metamorphoses for 23 solo strings ," which on January 25, 1946 were first performed with the Collegium Musicum Zurich.
1933 founded the Schola Cantorum Paul Sacher. In 1941, the foundation of the " Collegium Musicum Zurich ( CMZ ) ". In 1972 he received the Prize of the City of Basel, in 1997 an honorary doctorate from the Music Academy in Krakow and the Maecenas ceremony of the Working Group of Independent Cultural Institutes eV ( AsKI ) in Germany.
Explicit evaluation finds its systematic promotion of modern music in the last chapters of the novel Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, on the occasion of the occurrence of the novel's hero Leverkiihn ( the trains of Mahler and Schoenberg combines ) in Switzerland.
The novel Beloved mother of Swiss author Urs Widmer is read as a roman à clef against the background of Paul Sacher's life.