Otto Tomek

The fertile period of new music after the Second World War was also the heyday of German radio stations. Among the important figures of this era was the music journalist, radio editor, head of the music department, and publishing director Otto Tomek (1928–2013). As the first editor for new music, he was responsible for “Musik der Zeit” at WDR, as head of the music department at SWF for the Donaueschingen Music Days and the Experimental Studio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation, and as music director at SDR for the Schwetzingen Festival and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Hans-Peter Jahn paints a portrait of Otto Tomek as a patron, friend, and advisor to countless renowned composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, Pierre Boulez, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti, and Wolfgang Rihm, drawing on many previously unpublished documents and correspondence. Using the example of Otto Tomek's work at WDR, SWF, and SDR, the book provides deep insights into the specific characteristics and internal structures of the three broadcasting companies, as well as the power and powerlessness of a broadcasting professional such as Otto Tomek.
This opens up new perspectives on recent music history from the post-war period to the 1990s, highlighting the exclusive and formative role played by the broadcasting companies with their paradisiacal forces of attraction and repulsion, their promotional activities, but also their specific evaluation and selection criteria.

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See also the review by Rüdiger Albrecht in info-netz-musik.