Baur, Jürg

Baur, Jürg, German composer and pedagogue; b. Dusseldorf, Nov. 11, 1918. He was a student of Philipp Jarnach (composition) and Mchael Schneider (organ) at the Cologne Cons. (1937–39). During military service in World War II (1939–45), he was taken prisoner-of- war by the Russians. After his release, he returned to Cologne to continue his music training (1946—48), and then studied musicology with Fellerer at the Univ. there (1948–51). He also was a lecturer in theory at the Robert Schumann Cons, in Dusseldorf (1946). From 1952 to 1966 he served as choirmaster at the Pauluskirche in Dusseldorf. In 1965 he became director of the Robert Schumann Cons, there, and in 1969 was made a prof. From 1971 to 1991 he was prof. of composition at the Cologne Hochschule für Musik. In 1957 he received the Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Dusseldorf, in 1980 he was guest of honor of the Villa Massimo in Rome, in 1990 he received the Order of Merit of the State of North-Rhine-Westphalia, in 1994 he received the music award of the City of Duisburg, and in 1997 he received the music award of the Gerhard Maasz Foundation for his life’s work and the honorary ring of the German Schubert Soc. In his early works, Baur was much influenced by Bartók and Hindemith. He later pursued a highly personal approach to the utilization of dodecaphony, serialism, and aleatory, which blossomed into an admirably crafted synthesis of styles.