Born: February 16, 1900 - Weimar or Winterthur
Died: July 14, 1966 - Arnheim, Holland

The composer and teacher, Erhart Ermatinger, studied at Konservatorium Zürich with Volkmar Andreae und Philipp Jarnach; from 1918 to 1922 at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, where he became acquainted with Jarnachs Vermittlung Ferruccio Busoni.

In 1922-1923 Erhart Ermatinger was Korrepetitor at the Zürcher Stadttheater; in 1925-1926 he accepted an invitation of Willibald Gurlitts in Freiburg to give lectures on new music and music theory. In 1926 he went to Berlin, where he became wrter for the Allgemeinen Musikzeitung. In 1930 he moved to 1930 to Nederhemert in Holland, returned then at the end of of 1934 again to Zürich, where he was active as choir director and music teacher. Starting from 1945 he was a theory teacher at the Konservatorium Zürich.

As a composer Erhart Ermatinger faced the modern trend and the Dodekaphonik sceptically. He described his conservative aesthetics in various essays, such as Buch Zerfall und Krise des nachklassischen Musiklebens (Bern, 1939).

Source: Zentralbibliothek Zürihc Website, English translation by Aryeh Oron (December 2005)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (December 2005)