OBITUARIES

CONRAD VON DER GOLTZ

Violinist Conrad von der Goltz, a concertmaster with numerous orchestras and a champion of youth music education, died on 21 November 2023. He was 95.

Von der Goltz was born in Berlin in 1928 and lived in Sweden during the Second World War. From 1948 he studied first in Hamburg and then in Detmold with Tibor Varga, and took part in masterclasses with Max Rostal and Wolfgang Schneiderhan.

A host of concertmaster positions followed his studies, including at Göttingen, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, first concertmaster at the Bremen Philharmonic State Orchestra and as a guest at the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden.

As an educator, von der Goltz became professor at the Würzburg University of Music in 1963, a post he held until 1993. He was also professor of violin at the University of Catholic Church Music and Music Education in Regensburg. He received a Federal Cross of Merit for his work in music education.

Von der Goltz was also a member of the Brahms Trio with his pianist wife Kirsti Hjort and cellist Jan Polasek, as well as the German-English Mozart Ensemble and the Von der Goltz Chamber Orchestra.

JÁNOS ROLLA

Hungarian violinist János Rolla died on 7 December 2023 at the age of 79. He was a founding member of the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra in 1963, holding the role of concertmaster for over 50 years, as well as artistic director from 1979 until his retirement. Born in 1944 in Kőtelk, Rolla was a student of Mária Zipernovszky at the Bartók Conservatory from 1957 to 1962, and studied at the Liszt Academy of Music in the class of Dénes Kovács from 1962 and 1968. He played in the Hungarian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra between 1967 and 1974.

Rolla made more than 200 recordings with the Liszt Chamber Orchestra, and performed with the ensemble and numerous festivals worldwide. On the 20th anniversary of the ensemble’s founding in 1983, Rolla and his fellow musicians received a memorial plaque marking the sale of a million recordings. In 1992 the French government made him a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Rolla joined the teaching staff at Budapest’s Liszt Academy of Music in 2008 after receiving an honorary teaching title from the school in the previous year. From 2008 to 2011 he was head of the chamber music department.

PETRU MUNTEANU

Romanian violinist and pedagogue Petru Munteanu died on 17 November 2023 at the age of 83. He was known for initiating the International Violin Competition and International Master Classes for strings in Kloster Schöntal, where he was artistic director. He also served as the artistic director of the Leopold Mozart competition in Augsburg.

Born on 26 June 1940 in Bucharest, Munteanu pursued his studies there under professor George Manoliu. He went on to teach violin at the Bucharest Conservatoire, the University of Lübeck, the Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg and the University of Music and Drama Rostock. From 2000 to 2004 he was president of the German section of the European String Teachers Association.

Munteanu served as a jury member at many international competitions including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Premio Paganini Competition in Genoa, the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, the Enescu Competition in Bucharest, the Wieniawski Competition in Poznań and the Bach competition in Leipzig. He was also honoured for his achievements as an honorary professor at the University of Brasov and was awarded the highest medal of the Republic of Lithuania.

LUTZ RATH

The German-born US cellist Ludwig (Lutz) Rath died on 7 November 2023 at the age of 78. He had been artistic director of New York’s Washington Square Music Festival since 2001.

Rath was born in 1945 in Krefeld, Germany. He received a master of arts from the Hochschule für Musik in Munich. He immigrated to the US where he studied with János Starker at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music from 1972 to 1974. Following his studies, he lived in New York City and Sag Harbor, NY.

Rath performed as cellist of the International String Quartet, principal cellist of the Munich Philharmonic and principal cellist of Orchestra of St Luke’s. As a teacher he served on the faculties at Brown University, University of Indiana (Bloomington) and Bennington College. In its tribute on social media, the Washington Square festival posted that Rath was ‘well known on the local and international music scene’ and that ‘his knowledge of classical, contemporary and world music was exhaustive, which he enthusiastically shared with our audiences’. The festival dedicated its concert on Sunday 19 November to Rath.

JACQUES GHESTEM

The French violinist Jacques Ghestem died on 10 November 2023 at the age of 90. A prolific chamber and ensemble player, he was second violinist of the Parrenin Quartet from 1970 to 1980 and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris.

Ghestem was a member of Ensemble Intercontemporain and Ensemble Alterance. He was the author of the method book Approach to Contemporary Music on the Violin, in which he used the works of ten contemporary French composers to describe and explain various techniques and their execution.