Richard Flury: Piano Quintet in A minor

Richard Flury (1896-1967)

Piano Quintet in A minor

I. Andante - Allegro 0:00
II. Andante 10:19
III. Scherzo: Vivace 17:10
IV. Finale: Presto 20:58

Margaret Singer, piano
Ulrich Lehmann, violin
Urs Joseph Flury, violin
Erich Meyer, viola
Stefan Thut, cello

Richard Flury (1896 - 1967 ibid) was a Swiss conductor and composer. After earning a baccalaureate at the secondary school in Solothurn (Switzerland) Flury studied musicology, art history and philosophy at the Universities of Basel, Bern and Geneva. At the local conservatories he also attended the violin classes of Fritz Hirt, Alphonse Brun and Paul Miche. He also took lessons in composition with Hans Huber, counterpoint with Ernst Kurth and in instrumentation with Joseph Lauber. At the end of his studies he worked with the composer Joseph Marx in Vienna and attended a conducting course from Felix Weingartner in Basel. Flury then worked as a violin teacher, from 1919 to 1937 at the municipal music school and from 1930 to 1961 at the Cantonal School in Solothurn. For thirty years he conducted the Solothurn City Orchestra (1919 to 1949) and for a few years the Academic Orchestra (1923 to 1926) in Zurich, the mixed choir “Harmonie” in Bern and the Gerlafingen Orchestra Association. As a guest conductor, he led subscription concerts in Bern and Basel and occasionally worked in the radio studios in Zurich and Lugano, where he mostly conducted his own works. As a composer, Flury was rooted in the neo-Romantic tradition and found his personal style in the imaginative harmony and rhythmic development of his works, especially his orchestral works, which are colorfully orchestrated. There are also impressionistic traits that stretch to the limits of tonality. A wider audience was closed to him, due to his working in provincial areas for most of his life, but Flury's importance was recognized by many prominent musicians of his time, including Wilhelm Backhaus, Joseph Bovet, Paul Burkhard, Pablo Casals, Alfred Cortot, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Gustave Doret, Walter Gieseking, Georg Kulenkampff, Franz Lehár, Hermann Scherchen, Othmar Schoeck, Richard Strauss, Joseph Szigeti and Felix Weingartner, who conducted Flury's Carnival Symphony in Basel. This work, like the Forest Symphony, was also performed in various music centers in Europe. In 1964 Richard Flury was awarded the Solothurn Art Prize. His son is Urs Joseph Flury .