Christfried Schmidt

Schmidt was born in 1932 as the son of a miller in Markersdorf. In Görlitz, he attended the grammar school and received piano lessons from Humperdinck's pupil Emil Kühnel. From 1951 to 1954, he studied church music at the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik der Evangelischen Kirche der schlesischen Oberlausitz (B-exam) and from 1955 to 1959 with Werner Buschnakowski (organ) and Johannes Weyrauch (music composition) at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig (A-Exam). In Leipzig, he familiarised himself with Neue Musik with Hermann Heyer.[1][2]

From 1960 to 1962, Schmidt was a church musician in Forst. From 1963 to 1964, he worked as an acting bandmaster in Quedlinburg and then from 1965 to 1980 was a freelance piano teacher and choir director in Quedlinburg. In Warsaw, he met the Japanese musicologist Ichirō Tamura, who enabled him to perform his works in Japan. Since 1980, he has been living as a freelance composer in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg.[3] The artistic breakthrough came with the premiere of his oboe concerto performed by Burkhard Glaetzner at the DDR-Musiktagen 1984.[4]

His orchestral work Memento was premiered in 2002 in the Leipziger Gewandhaus by the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fabio Luisi.[5]

In 2019, the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin under Kai-Uwe Jirka premiered his St. Mark Passion from 1975 after 45 years.[6] The highly expressive, headstrong work combines aleatoric compositional procedures (influenced by Witold Lutosławski's controlled aleatoric music) with a polyphonic way of thinking in the wake of J.S. Bach and the Viennese School.[7][8]

• 1971: Composition prize in Nürnberg
• 1973: Composition prize in Stettin
• 1976: Composition prize in Triest
• 1978: Kompositionspreis in Boswil
• 1987: Kunstpreis der DDR
• 1990: Member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, (East) (until 1991)
• 1991: Johann-Wenzel-Stamitz-Preis
• 1998: Member of the Sächsische Akademie der Künste
• 1999: Berliner Kunstpreis (Promotion Prize)

• Ursula Stürzbecher: Komponisten in der DDR. 17 Gespräche. Hildesheim 1979, ISBN 3-8067-0803-7.
• Georg-Friedrich Kühn: Unbefangen, ungebärdig. Die Extreme des Ausdrucks. Glied der musikalischen Gesellschaft: Christfried Schmidt. In Musik-Texte 4/1984
• Frank Schneider: Klang-Bilder. Ein alter Aspekt in neuer Musik der DDR. In Bildende Kunst 6/1984
• Frank Schneider: Christfried Schmidt. In Prospekt Deutscher Verlag für Musik. Leipzig 1987
• Gerald Felber: Verletzbare Leidenschaftlichkeit. Der Komponist Christfried Schmidt. In Sonntag 36/1987
• Habakuk Traber: Notizen. Christfried Schmidt zum 60. Geburtstag.In Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 12/1992.
• Beate Schröder-Nauenburg: Christfried Schmidt. In Komponisten der Gegenwart (KDG). Edition Text & Kritik, Munich 1996, ISBN 978-3-86916-164-8

• Literature by and about Christfried Schmidt in the German National Library catalogue
• Christfried Schmidt discography at Discogs