Rudolf Baumgartner

Rudolf Baumgartner (born September 14, 1917 in Zurich ; † March 22, 2002 in Siena ) was a Swiss violinist , conductor and arranger of works of classical music .

Life

Rudolf Baumgartner studied violin with Stefi Geyer , whose chamber music partner he was in the Stefi Geyer Quartet. Then undertook further violin studies in Paris and Vienna . Until 1956 he was second concertmaster at the Collegium Musicum Zurich. In 1943 he married the Zurich sculptor Katharina Sallenbach . In 1945 he was a co-founder of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra . In 1956, together with Wolfgang Schneiderhan , whose assistant he was in the master classes in Lucerne and Salzburg until 1959, he founded the Chamber Orchestra Festival Strings Lucerne , of which he was director until 1998. From 1960 to 1987 he was director of the Lucerne Conservatory. In 1968 he was appointed artistic director of the "Internationale Musikfestwochen" (today the Lucerne Festival ) (until 1980). In 1979 he received the Central Switzerland Culture Prize and in 1991 he became an honorary citizen of the city of Lucerne.

He also commissioned well-known composers such as B. Peter Mieg : So in 1950 the Divertimento for oboe and string trio or in 1978 the Triple concerto dans le goût italien for violin, viola, cello and string orchestra.

literature

• Franziska Schläpfer: Rudolf Baumgartner. A musician with an entrepreneurial spirit. Comenius-Verlag, Luzern 2003. ISBN 3-906970-02-7 .

Web links

• Thomas Gartmann: Rudolf Baumgartner. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .