Edwin Fischer

Edwin Fischer, active as a pianist, conductor, and teacher throughout the initial decades of the twentieth century, earned recognition for his deeply felt readings of keyboard works by J.S. Bach and Mozart. Born in Basle in 1886, he began keyboard lessons at age four; both parents played the instrument and built musical tools for a living. He entered the Basle Conservatory in 1896 and received instruction from Hans Huber, completing his studies there in 1904 before relocating to Berlin to attend the Stern Academy. His principal teacher became Martin Krause, himself a pupil of Franz Liszt and Eugen d'Albert. While still enrolled, Fischer gave his first solo appearance with d'Albert’s Piano Concerto No. 2; the composer, seated in the hall, expressed strong approval and offered supportive counsel. One year later Fischer joined the Stern Academy staff as a piano instructor, rapidly establishing a name for himself in that role while also appearing regularly as recitalist and orchestral soloist. He further served as accompanist to the celebrated German tenor Ludwig Wüllner. The outbreak of World War I forced him to leave Berlin around 1914, terminating his association with the academy.

Returning to Switzerland, he launched a concert career in 1916 and, in 1919, wed Leonora von Mendelssohn, daughter of a leading banker. The union brought him into contact with influential social circles that further advanced his already thriving professional standing, yet Mendelssohn’s worsening psychological difficulties rendered the marriage unstable, leading to divorce in 1925. The next year he assumed the post of conductor with the Lübeck Musikverein; in 1928 he transferred to Munich to lead the Bachverein. Four years afterward he departed Munich to become director of the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. Between 1933 and 1936 he produced the first integral recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. In Berlin he also assembled a chamber orchestra and ranked among the earliest musicians to adopt historically informed performance practices.

With the intensification of World War II he returned to Switzerland in 1942 and suspended musical activity until hostilities ended. Resuming concerts and pedagogy in 1945, he formed a piano trio alongside cellist Enrico Mainardi and violinist Georg Kulenkampff. He committed numerous works of Bach and Beethoven to disc; his accounts of Mozart’s piano concertos remain especially admired. He likewise partnered with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf on a widely circulated recording of Schubert lieder. Neuropathy in his fingers compelled him to abandon touring in 1954, although he persisted with recording sessions and private instruction until his death in 1960.