Kurt Schwertsik

Born on the 25th of June 1935 in Vienna, Austria, Schwertsikstudied composition with Joseph Marx and Karl Schiske, and horn at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1958, with fellow composer Friedrich Cerha, he co-founded the new music ensemble 'die reihe'. Schwertsik attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses at their peak around 1960, and was a pupil there and in Cologne of Karlheinz Stockhausen.

However, the influence of John Cage and other American composers, together with Schwertsik's friendship with Cornelius Cardew, opened up alternative creative paths, leading to his ultimate rejection of serialism and reorientation towards tonality as a means of musical communication. In 1965 with the composer/pianist Otto Zykan he co-founded the 'Salon Concerts' in Vienna, and published a manifesto attacking certain aspects of the post-war avant-garde.

Over the past 30 years Schwertsik has attracted a reputation as one of Austria's leading composers, cutting a mercurial figure in Viennese musical life. In recent years he has been a featured composer at the Almeida Festival in London in 1987, the Brisbane Musica Nova Festival in 1990, and was honoured in his home city with the largest retrospective of his music at Wien Modern in 1992. Works by Schwertsik were included in the Alternative Vienna festival, presented by the South Bank Centre and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1995.

Schwertsik's most significant compositions include the fantasy opera Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, commissioned by the Stuttgart Opera in 1983 for its new Kammertheater, and the cycle of five orchestral works Irdische Klänge, heard for the first time in its complete form at Wien Modern in 1992. Concertos by Schwertsik include those for violin, timpani, guitar, double bass, alphorn and Instant Music for flute and wind orchestra. He has collaborated with the noted choreographer Johann Kresnik on the four ballets Macbeth, Frida Kahlo, Nietzsche and Gastmahl der Liebe.

Schwertsik is also active as a song composer, having written a number of cycles including Starckdeutsche Lieder und Tänze for baritone and orchestra to texts by Matthias Koeppel. With his wife, Christa, Schwertsik has presented highly successful Lieder evenings at many major music festivals, and a disc of songs and chamber music was recently released on the Largo label.

Recent works include Die Welt der Mongolen staged by Linz Opera, and Roald Dahl’s Goldilocks premiered by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.