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Born: March 8, 1940 - Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Died: August 27, 2025 - Köln, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany |
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The German conductor and organist, Peter Neumann, the son of a pastor (together with his twin brother Martin), studied church music and orchestral conducting in Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Berlin, and Paris. In Berlin, he was taught organ by Michael Schneider. He then took up a professorship for organ in Cologne in 1965, and became his assistant in Cologne in 1967 and subsequently held the position of church musician at the Kartäuserkirche in Cologne. As a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, he studied in Paris with Gaston Litaize and, briefly, with Olivier Messiaen. In the field of orchestral conducting, he was significantly influenced by his teacher Sergiu Celibidache.
In Cologne, Peter Neumann worked with such ensembles as the Kölner Kammerchor, Musica Antiqua Köln, Capella Agostino Steffani and Concerto Köln. In addition, he also conducted the Collegium Cartusianum, which he formed in 1988 until March 2005. He worked closely with these ensembles and performed many sacred works. He concentrated on works from Early Music up to the Romantic period. In Early Music, he made a particular name for himself through performances of numerous oratorios by George Frideric Handel - at festivals including the Turin Settembre Musica, the Flanders Festival and the Wratislawia Cantans - and the major choral works of J.S. Bach - for example with the B minor Mass (BWV 232) at the BBC Promenade concerts in 1993. In May 1996 he conducted the Collegium Cartusianum at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with W.A. Mozart's Il Re pastore. Concert tours have taken him to almost all the countries of Europe and to Japan He recorded works by Claudio Monteverdi, Heinrich Schütz, J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, Johannes Brahms, and other composers.
Peter Neumann was guest conductor of the Nederlands Kamerkoor, the Chorus of Südfunk broadcasting organization, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Tokyo Schola Cantorum and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. In the series ‘250 Years of G.F. Handel’s Oratorios’, which he initiated, performed (following G.F. Handel’s 1749-1751 schedule) nine masterpieces by this great musical dramatist. In 1982, he won the Gran Premio Città di Arezzo with the Kölner Kammerchor, which made the choir known abroad, especially in Italy.
Outstanding among his CD recordings are the complete masses of W.A. Mozart, and Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, which won the Diapason d’Or. His live recording of G.F. Handel’s Saul was widely praised in the musical press.
In addition to his work as a conductor, Peter Neumann taught as a professor of organ at the Hochschule für Musik Köln In 2015, he was awarded the Bach Medal of the City of Leipzig.
At the end of August 2025, Peter Neumann died in a nursing home in Cologne at the age of 85. |
