Martin Rummel

Cellist Martin Rummel, an authority on 20th-century and contemporary repertoire, has built an extensive discography both as soloist and chamber musician while also publishing crime fiction.

Born in Linz on May 2, 1974, Rummel grew up under a law-professor father and completed a classical curriculum at a local Gymnasium. Piano and harpsichord were his initial instruments; at eight he turned to cello under Wilfred Tachezi at the Anton Bruckner Private University for Music, Drama, and Dance, earning the institution’s youngest diploma in 1991. He maintained harpsichord studies for a time before setting them aside. Already drawn to new music, he introduced Helmut Rogl’s cello concerto in 1994 and has since premiered roughly twenty further concertos for the instrument. He next enrolled at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, where Maria Kliegel guided his cello work until his 1997 graduation. Additional lessons came from Robert Cohen and William Pleeth in London, the latter of whom accepted Rummel as his final pupil.

By the closing years of the decade Rummel had established himself professionally. His debut recording, featuring Bohuslav Martinu’s Concertino, appeared on Musicaphon in 1996; in 2000 he joined the faculty of the University of Kassel and also instructed at Switzerland’s International Summer Academy Kurt Pahlen Lenk, later assuming teaching and artistic-directorship roles at other festivals. Through the 2000s and 2010s he continued issuing Musicaphon albums, among them the complete Beethoven cello works with pianist Gerda Guttenberg. Several crime novels were written in collaboration, one of which, Suite Opus 1, achieved notable commercial success.

Rummel has performed in Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Linz’s Brucknerhaus, and Düsseldorf’s Tonhalle, and has toured extensively in the United States and Oceania. Master classes are a frequent request; he has taught at the University of Auckland and served there as Head of School. During the 2010s he recorded for Naxos, Capriccio, Paladino Music, and additional labels in both solo and ensemble formats. When the first volume of David Popper’s works for cello and piano, recorded with pianist Mari Kato, was released on Paladino Music in 2022, his catalogue exceeded sixty-five titles.