'Mura'

As orchestra conductor, choirmaster, and college teacher, Erich Schmid (1907–2000) was an advocate for premieres and radio broadcasts of contemporary music in Switzerland. He himself studied with, among others, Bernhard Sekles, then Arnold Schoenberg, and adhered in his compositions to the aesthetics of the New Viennese School. The historical-critical Erich Schmid edition presents for the first time all sixteen works with opus numbers as well as three additional piano works.

The “little trio for flute, violin, and cello” Mura from 1955 is the last of his works. The position of director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, which Schmid held from 1949, stood in conflict with his compositional work. Mura is attuned to the technical level of his then eighteen-, fifteen-, and twelve-year-old children to whom he dedicated the piece. First and foremost a composition for private use, Schmid however “authorized” it with an opus number. Relatively easy to play, the five short movements allow unlearned music-makers an encounter with free tonality and, in the case of the Scherzo, which, framed by two slow and two fast movements, is the middle of the divertimento-like overall form, with dodecaphony.