Continuing with rarities from Swiss radio this weekend. The music of Alfred Baum, performed by the composer and the Beromünster Radio Symphony conducted by Erich Schmid. The Concerto for Clarinet, Piano and String Orchestra, written in 1961 and recorded by Swiss radio on November 14 of that year.
Alfred Baum was born on September 23, 1904, in Zurich, the youngest of five siblings. His father, Franz Baum, had immigrated to Switzerland from Silesia around the turn of the century and played double bass and tuba in the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. After completing his compulsory schooling, he studied organ with Ernst Isler, piano with Carl Baldegger, and composition with Volkmar Andreae at the Zurich Conservatory. As early as 1922, he earned his diploma as a teacher of music theory . After taking up his first organ position in Zollikon that same year, he was appointed organist at Neumünster Church on October 20, 1923. Baum prevailed in the final against three shortlisted candidates. His ability to read the score was crucial to his selection at the age of just 19: “I managed to get out of the situation the best, despite hitting a few wrong notes,” he later recalled with a smile. After receiving his diploma as an organist and teacher of organ playing with distinction in 1923, he spent a period of study in Hamburg with Alfred Sittard , the organist at St. Michael’s Church at the time. Sittard’s strict standards – “My goodness, what are you doing now? You’re playing like a hunted animal…” – challenged the Swiss musician greatly and encouraged him greatly. Baum had to finance most of his time in Hamburg himself and instead worked as a piano and harmonium improviser in silent film cinemas. This familiarized him with the novelty piano style popular in the Roaring Twenties, which he later (1939/41) used in a humorous cabaret song cycle on poems by Wilhelm Busch. The source of inspiration for numerous piano dance pieces (foxtrot, tango, rumba, for example in the popular book Twelve Pieces for Piano Four Hands , Ed. Kunzelmann) probably dates back to this period. After returning to Switzerland, he studied piano with Walter Frey (graduating with a concert diploma), whose teaching was instrumental in Baum’s pedagogical and artistic development. In 1929, Baum took over a piano and harmony class at the Winterthur Conservatory. He became a sought-after piano teacher and, in 1946, was also appointed teacher of piano and ensemble playing at the Zurich Conservatory. Among those who studied with him were: Willi Gohl, pianist, choirmaster, and director of the Winterthur Conservatory; Giovanni Bria, pianist and conductor; Alfred Ehrismann, pianist and teacher at the Winterthur Conservatory; Klaus Wolters, pianist and teacher at the Winterthur Conservatory; Fritz Bernhard, organist in Uster; Alex Hug, organist at the Fraumünster, and, from the non-musical world, Maximilian Schell.
Enjoy another rarity.
