Clytus Gottwald has died
Lost to the world: The composer, choirmaster, radio editor and musicologist Clytus Gottwald has died at the age of 97.
As editor for New Music at Südfunk Stuttgart and founder and director of the Schola Cantorum Stuttgart, he was in productive exchange with his contemporaries Pierre Boulez, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti, Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen and many others who founded New Music. With his Schola Cantorum, a 16-voice chamber vocal ensemble, Gottwald played a decisive role in shaping the a cappella choral culture at the highest technical level that is taken for granted today. His transcriptions of piano songs or instrumental pieces for polyphonic a cappella choir, which set the highest musical standards in a style inspired by Ligeti, are appreciated by choirs all over the world.
Clytus Gottwald has received several awards for his achievements, including the Baden-Württemberg Culture Prize in 2009, the European Church Music Prize in 2012 and the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2014. His importance for the development of contemporary choral music cannot be overestimated.
With Clytus Gottwald, the Carus publishing house one of its most important authors.
