Wolfgang Marschner

Wolfgang Marschner (23 May 1926 – 24 March 2020 ) was a German violinist, teacher of violin, composer and conductor. He was concertmaster of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, and instrumental in world premieres of contemporary music. He was professor at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen, the Musikhochschule Köln, the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music and, for more than three decades, at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. He also taught at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse.

Life Marschner was born in Dresden in 1926. He studied from age 14 at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Marschner founded the Deutsche Spohr Akademie, an international academy for violin, viola and cello, and the Marschner Festival Hinterzarten in 1976, to promote young artists who played chamber music for strings. It included from 1992 a triennial International Marschner Competition for Violin and Viola as well as the International Violin Making and Violin Sound Competition "Jacobus Stainer" initiated by Marschner. Marschner became also director of the Pflüger Foundation which maintains a school for string players until age 16 with a focus on chamber music.

Performing career Marschner's recording of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto with Michael Gielen and the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg was critically acclaimed. Other examples of Marschner's involvement with the Second Viennese School include the concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Gielen, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Pierre Boulez in London, with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich conducted by Hans Rosbaud, with the Dresden Staatskapelle under Otmar Suitner, with the MDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Herbert Kegel, with Stockholmers conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, both with the Scottish National Orchestra at the 1959 Edinburgh Festival, which meant the British premiere. He also played it with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Gibson, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Norman Del Mar, and with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of Freiburg, which he also conducted himself.

Marschner performed Alban Berg's Violin Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Bruno Maderna, with the Wiesbaden Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gielen, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles Groves, with the hr-Sinfonieorchester under Mario Rossi, with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart conducted by Hans Müller-Kray, and with the RSO Helsinki and Nils-Eric Fougstedt.

He performed in Alban Berg's Chamber Concerto for Piano, Violin with 13 Wind Instruments with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and soloists Marschner and pianist Carl Seemann, conducted by Paul Hindemith, the Dresden Staatskapelle with Edouard Steuermann and Scherchen, with the Berlin Philharmonic also with Carl Seemann conducted by Werner Egk, with the Paris Symphony conducted by Pierre Boulez, with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Wilfred Parry conducted by John Pritchard and with the Hallé Orchestra Manchester conducted by John Barbirolli.

Premieres Marschner played world premieres such as Luigi Nono's Il Varianti in Palermo, violin concertos by Winfried Zillig with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt in Hamburg, by Bernd Alois Zimmermann in Cologne, by Igor Stravinsky in Cairo, and other works. As a premiere, Marschner performed the revised version of Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Concerto funebre in Braunschweig in 1959 with the local Staatstheaterkapelle conducted by Heinz Zeebe. He first performed works by Karlheinz Stockhausen, beginning with the Sonatine for violin and piano, with the composer as the pianist, in a broadcast as the first public performance of a work by Stockhausen. Honorary member of the Max-Bruch-Gesellschaft 2011: Honorary Plate (Ehrenteller) of Hinterzarten.