Fragment mit Frescobaldi (1992)

After many months of hardly touching the organ keys (let alone visiting this forum), I can finally report back with at least a small musical contribution: Fragment mit Frescobaldi (1992), a piece by Jürg Baur (1918–2010) which, like György Ligeti’s „Ricercare per organo – Omaggio a Girolamo Frescobaldi“ (https://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/61871), draws on the famous chromatic soggetto from Girolamo Frescobaldi’s „Recercar chromaticho post il Credo“ (https://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/61974).

Jürg Baur was born in Düsseldorf in 1918 and grew up in a culturally interested family. He began piano lessons at the age of eight and, within a few months, was already playing children’s pieces by modern composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, and Philipp Jarnach—works that soon inspired him to write his first compositions.

In 1937, Baur began studying composition in Cologne with Jarnach, a student of Ferruccio Busoni, while simultaneously studying piano with Karl Hermann Pillney and organ with Michael Schneider. The outbreak of World War II and his conscription into military service interrupted his studies, which he was only able to resume after returning from Soviet captivity, completing them in 1947.

From 1946, Baur taught composition at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Düsseldorf, and between 1952 and 1966 he also served as cantor at the Pauluskirche in Düsseldorf-Unterrath and taught for several years at the State Church Music School of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland. In 1965, he became director of the Robert Schumann Conservatory before moving to Cologne in 1971 to take over the composition class of the late Bernd Alois Zimmermann, which he led until 1990.

Baur received numerous honors for his compositional work, including being awarded the Villa Massimo scholarship in Rome twice. He died in 2010, at an advanced age, in his hometown of Düsseldorf.