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Camille Richezca@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-220
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Friedrich Cerha died on the morning of February 14, just a few days before his 97th birthday. We mourn the loss of a great artist, one of the most important composers of our time and an ever-attentive, critical contemporary.
Composers of various generations talk about their personal encounters with Friedrich Cerha’s monumental Spiegel cycle.
The series of concerts celebrating Friedrich Cerha's 95th birthday culminated in August: the monumental Spiegel cycle was performed at the Salzburg Festival by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher. We celebrate the anniversary with a collection of portrait articles, current links, and his video interview for the Stadtjournal wien.at.
Randall Smith, Blue Bongo Fever Dream
Friedrich Cerha, Concerto
Igor Strawinsky, The Rite of Spring
Friedrich Cerha, composition
Vivi Vassileva, percussion
ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien
Marin Alsop, conductor
Friedrich Cerha, Fasce
Rebecca Saunders, Wound - for ensemble and orchestra
Bas Wiegers, conductor
Klangforum Wien
Composer Friedrich Cerha was born in Vienna in 1926. He started fighting actively against fascism as a student, deserted twice from the German Wehrmacht and survived the end of World War II as the innkeeper of a cabin in Tyrol. In 1946, he entered the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna to study violin, composition and music education. At the same time, he studied musicology, philosophy and German philology at the University of Vienna.
As a concert violinist and music teacher he was in contact with young composers, poets and painters of the avantgarde underground who later joined together to form the Art-Club. He also became part of the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and analysed works of the Viennese School with Josef Polnauer, a former Schoenberg pupil. In 1956, 1958 and 1959 he attended the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music. With comrades such as the composer Kurt Schwertsik (and later also H.K. Gruber) as well as his wife Gertraud, he founded the ensemble die reihe in 1958 to create a forum for contemporary music. The ensemble toured extensively to great acclaim presenting works of the Avantgarde, the Viennese School and the early 20th century. From 1959 to 1988 Friedrich Cerha held a position at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna, where he taught a class of composition, notation and interpretation of contemporary music from 1976 to 1988.
From 1960 to 1997 he was active as a conductor and worked with renowned ensembles and orchestras at festivals and concert series such as Salzburger Festspiele, Berliner und Wiener Festwochen, Venice Biennale, Warsaw Autumn, Festival d’Automne Paris, Jyväskylä Festival, musica viva Munich, Nutida Musik Stockholm, Neues Werk Hamburg, Musik der Zeit Köln and others. In addition, he has made guest appearances at international opera houses such as State Opera Unter den Linden Berlin, Vienna, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Liceo Barcelona and Teatro Colon Buenos Aires. In 1978 together with Hannes Landesmann he established the concert series “Wege in unsere Zeit” at the Vienna Konzerthaus which he directed until 1983. In 1994 he became president of the Klangforum Wien, a post he held until 1999.
Friedrich Cerha’s music historical significance is also ensured by his completion of the third act of Alban Berg’s Lulu. While working on this (from 1962 to 1978) he also completed his own music theatre Netzwerk (World Premiere in 1981 at Wiener Festwochen) that translates questions of organic growth from the realm of Biology to Music. His other music theatre works Baal, Der Rattenfänger(The Pied Piper), Der Riese vom Steinfeld (The Giant of Steinfeld) and Onkel Präsident (Uncle President) tell different facets of the relationship between society and the individual – a subject that has occupied Friedrich Cerha since his early youth.
It is not possible to relate Friedrich Cerha to only one aesthetic or tradition. He has spent much of his career delving into various musical styles of the 20th century, including 12-tone technique, neoclassicism, and serial music. However, the most important feature of his work is not its use of each music theory, but its sensuous sound experiences, which are easy for even the untrained ear to follow. A perfect example of Cerha’s artistic pursuit is the cycle Spiegel I – VII for orchestra, on which the composer started work in 1960/61, with its complete performance first given in 1972. The sound world of the seven pieces for orchestra exerts a compelling power on the listener.
His oeuvre encompasses all genres, and he wrote numerous pieces for ensemble, choir and orchestra commissioned by major international institutions and festivals such as Koussevitzky-Foundation New York, BNP Paribas Paris, Festival de Música de Canarias, Südwestfunk Baden-Baden, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, musica viva Munich, Konzerthaus Berlin, ORF Wien, steirischer herbst Graz, Wiener Konzerthaus, Musikverein Wien, Wiener Philharmoniker and others.
Friedrich Cerha is a recipient of the Grand Austrian State Prize, a member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. The Venice Biennale awarded Cerha with the Golden Lion for his life’s work in 2006. Friedrich Cerha was honoured with the 2012 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize of Music”.
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.
Until today, Friedrich Cerha has written more than 200 works in different genres from solo to opera. We created a work catalogue that also includes every unpublished or unfinished composition. You can search the database for different key features such as genre, title, year, duration or number of musiciens.
“In the second part of the piece (...) Cerha stages a completely different mood, with the bright colours of the woodwinds and buzzing violins. Vivi Vassileva moves to the right, to her vibraphone, which she plays almost tenderly. (...) With soft mallets and later two bows that make the notes vibrate. The instrument sings, chirps and hums, from the left the celesta answers. The music seems to float for a few minutes. A wonderfully spherical moment, as a calming pole before [the] third part. Here the soloist whirls on the xylophone, in dialogue with brief motifs of the orchestra. (...) the piece ends with another gesture of incantation: all percussionists and the conductor hold their arms in the air for seconds. Huge cheers, which are highly deserved for the interpretation as well as for the wonderful piece.”
Hamburger Abendblatt, Daniel Dittus, 07/11/2022, about „Konzert für Schlagzeug und Orchester“
“Commissioned for the Donaueschingen Festival in 2014 [...], Nacht is a work of slow-building textures and beautiful sonorities. A night sky of harmonic stasis is periodically intruded upon by meteor showers of glissandos shooting across the orchestra.”
Grammophone on the recording of "Nacht"
“‘Tombeau’, the closing movement, is a work of funereal shades, low strings and brass leading the way. Little happens other than a slow crescendo to a cacophonous tutti and a corresponding slow fade away; but, as often with Cerha, this intense darkness finds expression in wonderful orchestral colour, and the work has a stately grandeur.”
Grammophone on the recording of "Drei Orchesterstücke"
Friedrich Cerha talks about his music
Nachtstück, Boulanger Trio
Konzert for percussion and orchestra (2007/08) Martin Grubinger, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Konzert for cello and orchestra (1989/96) Bruno Weinmeister, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Susanna Mälkki
Onkel Präsident (2008-10) Documentary in German
Friedrich Cerha: Spiegel I–VII (1960/61)
Friedrich Cerha: Kurzzeit (2016/17)
Friedrich Cerha: Nacht (2012/13)
Eine Art Chanson & Eine letzte Art Chanson (1985 - 89) Agnes Heginger, Studio Dan
Bruchstück, geträumt (2009) for Ensemble
Mikrogramme (2020) Klangforum Wien, Johannes Kalitzke
Fünf Stücke for clarinet, cello and piano (2000) No.1 very quiet Andreas Schablas, Arcus Ensemble Wien
Zwei Szenen: Wohlstandskonversation (2011) Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart
8 Sätze nach Hölderlin-Fragmenten für Streichsextett: I. Eighth=63 (1955) Swiss Chamber Soloists
Holger Falk, attensam quartett
Kairos, 2022, 0015107KAI
Friedrich Cerha; HK Gruber; Ensemble die reihe
Kairos, 0015100KAI, 2021
Friedrich Cerha; HK Gruber; Kurt Prihoda; Rainer Keuschnig; Josef Pitzek
Kairos, 0015028KAI, 2019
Swiss Chamber Soloists
Claves, DDD, 2017
Fünf Sätze für Klaviertrio; Rhapsodie für Violine und Klavier; Drei Stücke für Cello und Klavier; Sechs Inventionen für Violine und Violoncello; Nachtstück aus: Trio für Violine, Violoncello und KlavierCAvi, 2016, 8553347
Friedrich Cerha; SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg; Emilio Pomàrico; WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln; Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Kairos, 0015005KAI, 2016
Friedrich Cerha; Ernst Kovacic; Mathilde Hoursiangou
Toccata, DDD, 2013
Andreas Schablas; Janna Polyzoides; Hugo Wolf Quartett; Arcus Ensemble Wien
Neos, DDD, 2013
Ulrike Jaeger; Sebestyen Ludmany; Stadler Quartett
Neos, DDD, 2011/2012
Martin Grubinger; Wiener Philharmoniker; Peter Eötvös; Pierre BoulezKairos, 2012, LC 10488
Musik von Friedrich Cerha; Marino Formenti; Rodrigo GarciaCol-legno, 2012, LC 07989
Friedrich Cerha; Klangforum Wien; WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln; Sylvain Cambreling; Peter Rundel
Kairos, 0013152KAI, 2011
ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien; Ensemble „die reihe“; Friedrich Cerha; ORF Chor; Erwin OrtnerKairos, 2011, LC 10488
SWR-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, Sylvain Cambreling; ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien; Dennis Russel Davis; Friedrich Cerha;Kairos, 2010, LC 10488
Friedrich Cerha; Heinrich Schiff; Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra; Peter Eötvös
ECM, DDD, 2007
RSO-Wien; Friedrich Cerha; Theo Adam; Kenneth RiegelORF, 2006, LC 11428
RSO Wien; Bertrand de Billy/ Johannes Kalitzke; Ernst KovacicCol-legno, 2006, LC 07989
Arditti-Quartett; Thomas Kakuska, Viola; Valentin Erben, Cello
CPO, DDD, 2004
Cerha; Hampson; Damrau; Breedt; Samarovski; Zednik; Chor der Wiener Staatsoper; Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper; Boder
ORF, DDD, 2003
ORF, 2001
Künstler: Klangforum Wien, Friedrich Cerha; Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Michael Gielen
col legno, 2000, DDD/LA