Heinrich Sutermeister

Heinrich Sutermeister in 1950

Heinrich Sutermeister (born Feuerthalen, 12 August 1910 – died Vaux-sur-Morges, 18 March 1995) was a Swiss opera composer.

Life and career

During the early 1930s he was a student at the Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich where Carl Orff was his teacher and Orff remained a powerful influence on his music. Returning to Switzerland in the mid 1930s, he devoted his life to composition. He wrote some works for the radio, starting with Die schwarze Spinne in 1936, before turning later to television opera. His most successful stage work was Romeo und Julia, premiered in Dresden in 1940 under Karl Böhm.

Sutermeister's penultimate stage work, Madame Bovary, first given in Zurich in 1967, is loosely based on Flaubert's novel. With many characters cut, it consists largely of monologues for Emma Bovary, who was superbly sung by Anneliese Rothenberger. For his final opera, he adapted Eugène Ionesco's play Exit the King (Le Roi se meurt). Premiered in 1985 at Bavarian State Opera, with only six characters, a tiny chorus and small orchestra, this work, in its modest way, is as effective as anything Sutermeister wrote.

He was the brother of Hans Martin Sutermeister; their grandfather was the folklorist Otto Sutermeister.

Heinrich Sutermeister stamp, 2010

Works

Stage and broadcast works

See List of stage and broadcast works by Sutermeister.

Concert, chamber and religious music

• 1. Piano Concerto, 1943
• Capriccio for unaccompanied Clarinet in A,1947
• Die Alpen, fantasy on Swiss folksongs, 1948
• Gavotte de Concert, for trumpet and piano, 1950
• 2. Piano Concerto, 1953
• Missa da Requiem, 1952-1953
• 1. Cello Concerto, 1954-55
• 3. Piano Concerto, 1961-62
• Poème funèbre - En mémoire de Paul Hindemith for string orchestra, 1965
• Omnia ad Unum, cantata, 1965-66
• 2. Cello Concerto, 1971
• Te Deum, 1975
• Clarinet Concerto, 1975-76
• Consolatio philosophiae, 'Scène dramatique', 1979

References

• Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5
• Operone page on Sutermeister, accessed 1 April 2011