Composer
Biography:
Friedrich Cerha was born in Vienna in 1926. He began taking violin lessons in 1933 and, on his own initiative, began studying music theory and composition in 1936. In 1943, he became involved in active resistance for the first time as an air force assistant. In 1944/45, he deserted the German Wehrmacht twice and survived the end of the war as a mountain hut owner and guide in Tyrol.
From 1946 to 1950, he studied at the Academy of Music (violin, composition, music education) and at the University (German language and literature, philosophy, musicology) in Vienna. He had contact with avant-garde painters and writers around the Art Club and with the Schönberg Circle in the IGNM. From 1956 to 1958, he attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses and in 1958 founded the ensemble ‘die reihe’ with Kurt Schwertsik – the first permanent forum for avant-garde music, the Vienna School and classical modernism in Austria. From 1959, he taught at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, where he was professor of composition, notation and interpretation of new music from 1976 to 1988. In 1961, he began his extensive international career as an orchestra conductor at renowned festivals and institutions of new music and at opera houses.
From 1962 onwards, he worked on producing a performable version of the third act of Alban Berg's opera Lulu (premiered in Paris in 1979), which made the complete work accessible to the music world. His own musical theatre work Netzwerk premiered at the Vienna Festival in 1981, the operas Baal at the Salzburg Festival (1981), Der Rattenfänger at the Steirischer Herbst (1987) and Der Riese vom Steinfeld at the Vienna State Opera (2002).
Friedrich Cerha is a member of many international institutions for art and science. He has received numerous commissions for ensemble, choral and orchestral works, as well as numerous prizes and honours, most recently the Austrian Decoration of Honour for Science and Art in 2006, the Order of Arts and Letters, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale for his life's work, the Salzburg Music Prize in 2011 and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2012.
Albums:
Donaueschinger Musiktage 2014:
String Quartets Nos. 3 & 4 – Eight Movements after Hölderlin Fragments:
