Conrad Beck

Who was Conrad Beck?

Conrad Arthur Beck was a Swiss composer.

Beck was the son of a pastor. His stay in Paris between 1924 and 1933 proved crucial to his artistic development, where he studied with Jacques Ibert and also made contact with Arthur Honegger, Nadia Boulanger, and Albert Roussel. Returning to Basel in 1933, he headed the music department of Radio Basel for the next thirty years. He helped mediate cultural exchange through his many contacts with Swiss and international musicians.

At the suggestion of Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, who promoted his career more than any other composer, Beck settled in Basel in 1934. During a period of over 50 years, Sacher commissioned his works and conducted their premieres with the chamber orchestra Basler Kammerorchester and the Collegium Musicum Zürich. From 1939 to 1966 Beck worked as music director of Swiss Radio in Basel, a position that enabled him to do a great deal to promote contemporary music.

On the occasion of Paul Sacher's 70th birthday, Beck was asked, together with 11 composer friends, by Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich to write a composition for cello which used the notes creating Sacher's name: eS, A, C, H, E, Re. Beck created a three-movement work entitled Für Paul Sacher, Drei Epigramme for cello solo. The compositions were partially presented in Zürich on 2 May 1976. The first complete performance of the "eSACHERe" project will be given by Czech Cellist František Brikcius in Prague this autumn 2010-2011.