Something unexpected and thoroughly enjoyable this weekend. The music of Swiss Composer, Painter and journalist Peter Mieg as performed by the Basel Orchestra led by Lars Vogt and featuring cellist Klaus Heitz in this performance of his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra. A work which premiered in 1967 and this performance (presumably the premier) taking place on June 14/15 1967 in Basle Switzerland.
Born on September 5, 1906, in Lenzburg / Switzerland, Peter Mieg grew up in a home in which everything to do with the arts was taken for granted: His first attempts at composition date from as early as 1918. After graduating from the gymnasium (secondary school) in Aarau, he studied art history, archaeology, music history, German and French literature in Zurich as well as in Basle and Paris. At the same time he studied piano with Emil Frey and Hans Münch. During various sojourns in Paris, Peter Mieg steeped himself in the intellectual and cultural atmosphere of the thirties and was in turn shaped in significant ways by French architecture and culture. After completing his dissertation on modern Swiss watercolor painting in 1933 and while devoting himself privately to composition and painting, Mieg turned to journalism, working as art, music and literature. From 1942 on, Frank Martin advised him in questions of composition. Early in the 1950‘s came his breakthrough as a composer. Henceforth, Mieg composed exclusively on commission and numerous performances of his works began to be heard regularly in Switzerland and abroad. Moreover, in 1961, he began to exhibit regularly as a painter in watercolors and gouache. From 1939 on Mieg lived in a Lenzburg townhouse known as the “Sonnenberg”, where he composed, painted and wrote until his death. It was in this house that he received his friends and from here he cultivated his diverse contacts with musicians, painters and writers. On December 7, 1990, he died at the age of 84.
Molded by his youth in Lenzburg as well as by his contact with French culture, Peter Mieg was “un homme d‘esprit”, a well read and cultured personality, which combined high sensibility and subtle judgement, serenity and a somewhat enigmatic irony.
Central to Mieg‘s work is a musical oeuvre that comprises ca. 135 compositions, in which he developed a neoclassicism of a quite personal stamp. His emphasis lies on concertos, chamber and piano music. To his artistic oeuvre belong hundreds of watercolors and gouaches: flowers, still lifes, interiors and landscapes. His voluminous journalistic work covers a broad thematic spectrum and consists of newspaper articles and contributions to books an magazines. Added to this is his correspondence with noted artists, belletristic and autobiographical works.
If you aren’t familiar, by all means dive in.
