Austrian composer and conductor Friedrich Cerha died Tuesday, February 14, in Vienna, three days before his ninety-seventh birthday. Prolific creator (over 200 opuses), eclectic performer (with baton or violin, from baroque to contemporary), and influential teacher, this freedom-loving man first made history for having completed the third act of Lulu, the opera left unfinished by Alban Berg (1885-1935). Co-founder, in 1958, of an ensemble, Die Reihe, which was an authority in the repertoire of the Vienna School, Frierich Cerha was not immediately recognized for the quality of his music. No doubt for having worked in a situation identified with humor during an interview given in 2013 to Austrian radio: “I have always felt very comfortable, in my place, between the chairs. »
When his death was announced, it was no longer between chairs but on a throne that he was legitimately placed in his native country. “Friedrich Cerha’s contribution to New Music in Austria is unparalleled”said Markus Hinterhäuser, pianist and artistic director of the Salzburg Festival. “Following the beaten path was not in Cerha’s nature”, went up Bogdan Roscic, the director of the Vienna Opera. However, it is the Austrian State Secretary for Culture, the ecologist Andrea Mayer, who best summed up the national contribution of Friedrich Cerha, by evoking his belonging to a generation confronted with Nazism and the Second World War. “As someone born in 1926she pointed out, he made us realize how much New Music needed the democratic spirit as a prerequisite for its development. »
The son of an electrical engineer, Friedrich Cerha was born on February 17, 1926 in Vienna. He began studying the violin at the age of 7 with a Czech teacher, Anton Pejhovsky, who did not just talk to him about music and warned him against the regime in power. In 1934, the child can also take the measure after an armed conflict, in town, of which his father takes him to see the appalling result: blood on the asphalt and houses riddled with bullets. A kind of lesson for those who have learned very early on the price of freedom.
The period of isolation experienced during the Second World War will be decisive for the creations to come
Attracted by composition (his first attempts date from 1935), the young Friedrich asked to take lessons in harmony and counterpoint from the age of 13. Entered the Realgymnasium in Vienna in 1936, he will not have time to obtain his secondary school diploma. He was enlisted in 1943 by the Wehrmacht and confined to a base in Achau, near Vienna. The following year, he was sent to Denmark to undergo training as a future officer. A convinced anti-Nazi, Friedrich Cerha came into contact with both Danish and German resistance movements and then decided to desert. Instead of joining his garrison in Germany, he fled on foot and, after a long journey through Pomerania, went into hiding on the heights of Tyrol. Undocumented and fearful of being found, he lives in Lamsenjoch as a refuge keeper, incidentally farmer and mountain guide. This period of isolation will be decisive for the creations to come.
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