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Paul Sacher (28 April 1906 – 26 May 1999) was a Swiss conductor, patron and billionaire businessman. At the time of his death Sacher was majority shareholder of pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche and was considered the third richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of US$13 billion.

He founded and conducted the Basler Kammerorchester (1926–1987). He commissioned notable works of composers of the 20th century and premiered them with the chamber orchestra. While better known for his interest in new music, he was also devoted to music of baroque and classical eras; he founded the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, institute for early music, in 1933.

Biography

Sacher studied under Felix Weingartner, among others. In 1926 he founded the chamber orchestra Basler Kammerorchester, which specialized in both modern (twentieth-century) and pre-classical (mid-eighteenth-century) repertory. In 1928 he founded the Basel Chamber Choir. Both the orchestra and choir gave their last performance in 1987. In 1984, the Serenata Basel was formed, with no direct connection to Sacher. They later adopted the name Kammerorchester Basel. He also founded the Collegium Musicum Zürich in 1941 with Walter Schulthess and Stefi Geyer which he conducted until its disbandment in 1992.

Personal life

He was considered the world's third-richest man of the 1990s after marrying the heiress of the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche. At the time of his death, he was reputed in various publications to be the richest man in Europe. He died in 1999, aged 93.

Sacher had 3 children outside marriage, two daughters, Katharina and Cornelia, with Countess of Faber-Castell, and a son, Georg Schmid.

Commissions

Immensely wealthy, Sacher commissioned works from many well-known composers, including:

• Igor Stravinsky (who provided him with the Concerto in D)
• Béla Bartók (Divertimento for Strings, the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, the String Quartet No. 6 and the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta)
• Bohuslav Martinů (many works including the Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani, Concerto da camera, etc.)
• Arthur Honegger (many works, including his Second and Fourth Symphony (Deliciae Basilienses)
• Frank Martin (six works, including the Petite symphonie concertante)
• Paul Hindemith
• Hans Werner Henze
• Richard Strauss
• Elliott Carter
• Witold Lutosławski (Sacher-Variationen, Double Concerto, Chain II)
• Henri Dutilleux (Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher and Mystère de l'instant)
• Harrison Birtwistle

Pierre Boulez wrote his Grawemeyer Award-winning work Sur Incises for Sacher's 90th birthday. Boulez bequeathed his entire catalogue (including drafts) to the Paul Sacher Foundation. Henze dedicated his Tenth Symphony to the memory of Sacher, who had commissioned it but died before its completion.

In 1983, Sacher acquired the Stravinsky estate. The Paul Sacher Stiftung (Foundation) is located in the centre of Basel (in Münsterplatz) and houses one of the world's most important musical-manuscript collections. Sacher bought most of these manuscripts himself, and they include complete collections by several important twentieth-century composers (including Lutosławski, Ligeti, Boulez and Reich). In 1997, he received an honorary doctorate from the Academy of Music in Kraków.

"eSACHERe"

On the occasion of Sacher's 70th birthday, twelve composer friends of his (Conrad Beck, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Benjamin Britten, Henri Dutilleux, Wolfgang Fortner, Alberto Ginastera, Cristóbal Halffter, Hans Werner Henze, Heinz Holliger, Klaus Huber and Witold Lutosławski) were asked by Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich to write compositions for cello solo using his name spelled out in musical notes (musical cryptogram) as the theme (eS, A, C, H, E, Re). Many of them were performed in a Zurich concert on 2 May 1976. The whole "eSACHERe" project was performed in its entirety for the first time by Czech cellist František Brikcius on 9 May 2011 in Prague.

References

1. Jürgen Schönstein (2 July 1996). "14 Millionen Dollar als Tageslohn". Die Welt (in German).
2. Tommasini, Anthony (27 May 1999). "Paul Sacher Is Dead at 93; Conductor and Arts Patron". The New York Times.
3. ^ "Die Konstruktion einer musikalischen Welt". Neue Musikzeitung (in German). July 1999.
4. "Project "eSACHERe"". František Brikcius. Archived from the original on 1 August 2020. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
5. ^ "The Founder" Archived 2006-11-24 at the Wayback Machine: Chronology, Paul Sacher Foundation.
6. Baldassarre, Antonio: Walter Schulthess in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 09 July 2010.
7. Klaus Geitel (18 May 2001). "Über Paul Sacher, diesen Animator der Musikwelt". Die Welt (in German).
8. "André Hoffmann-Roche". Handelszeitung (in German). 31 December 1999. Retrieved 28 November 2024.
9. "Dr Paul Sacher (1997)". Academy of Music in Kraków. Archived from the original on 26 March 2011. Retrieved 20 November 2010.
10. "eSACHERe World Premiere of unique set of 12 works, solo cello: František Brikcius", mfiles.co.uk. Retrieved 28 November 2024.

Links

• "Paul Sacher Foundation"
• "Sunday Feature: Paul Sacher, the Man Who Made 20th Century Music", BBC Radio 3, 26 February 2006

• Biography
• Classical music

• 1906 births
• 1999 deaths
• 20th-century conductors (music)
• 20th-century male musicians
• 20th-century philanthropists
• Businesspeople from Basel-Stadt
• Swiss conductors (music)
• Swiss male conductors (music)
• Honorary members of the Royal Philharmonic Society
• Swiss philanthropists
• Swiss patrons of music