Boris Blacher

Boris Blacher was born in 1903 in Niutschuang (China) to German-Baltic parents who were Russian citizens. After spending his childhood and youth in China, Siberia, and Manchuria, he moved to Berlin in 1922 to study, and the city subsequently became his home. The mind Weimar Republic laid the foundation for a clear, transparent compositional style, which Blacher maintained until his death in 1975, despite his openness to innovations such as the twelve-tone technique and electronic music. Blacher masterfully combined his compositional work with cultural and political activism. From 1948 to 1970, he was a professor of composition at the Berlin University of the Arts, and from 1953 onward, he also served as its director. In 1955, he was appointed a member of the West Berlin Academy of Arts, which he led as vice president from 1956 and as president from 1968 to 1971. A member of the East Berlin Academy of Arts from 1966 onward, he—as a close friend of Paul Dessau—considered the cultural dialogue between the parts of Berlin and Germany separated by the Iron Curtain to be a matter of great importance.
This volume brings together recent writings on the composer’s life and work, as well as a previously unpublished tribute by his companion Nicolas Nabokov and an interview with Blacher’s widow, the pianist Gerty Herzog.
With contributions by David Drew, Thomas Eickhoff, Christopher Grafschmidt, Jürgen Hunkemöller, Stephan Mösch, Hans-Jürgen Radecke, Aribert Reimann, Gerd Rienäcker, and Dietmar Schenk, as well as an inventory of the music materials in the Boris Blacher Archive.

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