FRIEDRICH CERHA PASSES AWAY AT THE AGE OF (NEARLY) 97

FRIEDRICH CERHA has been present in the Austrian concert scene like hardly any other contemporary composer. But he has left his mark on the music scene, not only through his diverse musical output, but also as the leader of various ensembles, as conductor and through his tireless commitment to (new) music and its mediation. Yesterday, on February 14, 2023, he passed away three days before his 97th birthday.

He may be best known as a composer, as one who curiously explored a wide variety of styles, coined novel ways of composing, and who claimed to have no style of his own. But he is also widely known as conductor, ensemble leader, and for his passion for contemporary music and its mediation; not least as a composition teacher and for the production of Act III of Lulu, left fragmentary by Alban Berg, and as a co-founder of Wien Modern. But it is not the individual activities that make up Cerha’s oeuvre. Rather, it is the persistent continuity with which the composer, who was born in 1926, devoted himself to musical life and its shaping, as well as the undogmatic approach and the integration of different things that made up Cerha’s personality.

Accordingly, the appreciation of Cerha as a pioneering figure is also expressed on many levels. The ORF changed its programming, so that its station Ö1 repeats, among other things, on Sunday, February 19 from 2:05pm, “Menschenbilder” from 2016. The program – “Impulse – The composer Friedrich Cerha” – was designed on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Also on Sunday, “Homage to Friedrich Cerha – the RSO honors Austria’s great composer!” will be played on ORF III.

Peter Paul Kainrath, artistic director of Klangforum Wien, writes: “Friedrich Cerha was a visionary pioneering spirit of blinkered discovery until old age. With his politically differentiated but always pointed attitudes, he reminded us again and again that music has to work at the epicenter of a humanistically oriented society.”

Bernhard Günther, artistic director of Wien Modern: “As a composer, Friedrich Cerha understood, in many astonishing ways, how to create a groundbreaking arc from meticulously researched tradition to radical reinvention. As curator, he was involved in the founding edition of the Wien Modern Festival in 1988, where, on the occasion of his 95th birthday in 2021, he received what was probably the longest standing ovation in the festival’s history at the complete performance of his Spiegel by the Vienna RSO. On Nov. 15, 2023, Wien Modern will fulfill its passionate festival regular’s wish to bring his revolutionary early work Fasce for large orchestra to the stage.”

Information about the work of Friedrich Cerha can be found in the mica – music austria database. Cerha left his estate to the Archiv der Zeitgenossen of the Danube University Krems several years ago, which then created the database Cerha Online, where comprehensive documents about his life and work are available.

Translated from the German original versions by Arianna Alfreds.