In memory of Franz Martin Küng (1948 - 2023)

Culture, and music in particular, was very important in the Küng family. Franz Martin's mother was a piano teacher and his father was a sought-after hairdresser in Baden and a wig maker for the silent film industry. Little Franz accompanied his music-loving father to the opera from an early age, and as a small boy he was able to recognize the grooves on his ever-growing collection of shellac records before he could read the inscriptions on the sleeves.

As a lower school pupil, he received ballet lessons, was discovered as a talent and was allowed to dance in performances at the Zurich Opera House. Franz only realized that becoming a pianist and not a dancer was his vocation during his time at boarding school in Zug, where he trained as a primary school teacher. He practiced many hours a day on the instrument and eventually studied piano privately with Irma Schaichet at the SMPV. He also received important impulses from Magda Tagliaferro in Paris.

Apparently he was playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in a piano lesson with Mrs. Schaichet when Géza Anda rang her doorbell and wanted to speak to her. She asked him to wait in the garden until the piano lesson was over, and there Géza Anda heard Franz Martin's piano playing through the open window. The fact that he was looking for a replacement for himself for the 1st Beethoven in Croatia was a happy coincidence for the young pianist, who of course gladly accepted the commission. His further international career took him from London to Athens, Stockholm and Rome. He particularly enjoyed talking about the concert there with Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto under Ricardo Muti. But as much as he loved the piano and the performances, he also got to know the downsides of such a career: the constant traveling, the loneliness associated with it and the great physical strain made it increasingly difficult for him. When he had to give countless concerts "like an assembly line worker" for a record contract with one and the same programme, he realized that he was not cut out for it.

He accepted the position of piano teacher at the Kanti Baden and found his true calling there as an enthusiastic and inspiring piano teacher. He was particularly strict when someone from his group of students stood out as a "primal talent". He knew that in addition to talent and diligence, this profession also required an iron will to persevere. He demanded a lot from them, but he also supported them by letting them know that he believed in them and that they could achieve anything if they put in the necessary effort. And because he knew how important performance experience is for young artists, he organized several concerts a year for the young talents. After retiring after 31 years at the Kanti Baden, he continued to teach at his parents' house in Baden - often with the window open, as the story goes. I wonder if he hoped that his students would be discovered the way he was back then?

He has felt very close to the SMPV since his studies. And so he was elected to the board of the Aargau section and eventually took over its presidency. He also often acted as an expert at diploma examinations, where he judged competently, strictly and yet benevolently. The "old" SMPV with its professional training was "his" SMPV. After this was handed over entirely to the Kalaidos University of Music, he remained loyal to the SMPV, but told me on the sidelines of a presidential conference: "Oh you know, I must have fallen out of time a bit; it's good that you're doing this now.". On November 24 - badly affected by his illness - he handed over the documents of the Aargau section to his successor - just two days before his strength left him.