Death of the composer Friedrich Cerha
According to an announcement by Universal Edition, the Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha died shortly before his 97th birthday.
Cerha studied violin, composition and music education at the Vienna Academy of Music from 1946, as well as musicology, German studies and philosophy at the University of Vienna, where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1950 with a dissertation on the Turandot theme in German literature. While the public Viennese music scene was distanced from new musical trends in the post-war period, he was in early contact with the avant-garde underground scene of young painters and writers around the Art Club and the Schönberg Circle of the International Society for New Music (IGNM Austria).
In 1958, he founded the ensemble die reihe together with Kurt Schwertsik and his wife Gertraud Cerha. In the years that followed, this ensemble was to introduce Viennese and later international audiences to pieces from the Viennese School, the avant-garde and the entire classical modern period, gaining international recognition through this pioneering achievement. From 1959, he taught at the Vienna University of Music, where he held a professorship for composition, notation and interpretation of new music from 1976 to 1988. From 1994, he also worked with Klangforum Wien and served as its president until 1999.
In addition to his commitment to contemporary music, editing early music was a major concern of his. He was intensively involved with medieval music cultures and published violin sonatas by Heinrich Schmelzer as early as 1956.
