Hugo Pfister

Pfister, Hugo (b Zürich, 7 Sept 1914; d Küsnacht, nr Zürich, 31 Oct 1969). Swiss composer and teacher.

He trained as a schoolteacher, then studied the piano and music theory with Czeslaw Marek. He taught music in the Teachers’ Training College in Küsnacht for most of his life. He composed in a light French manner until 1956–7 when he went to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger; he then quickly developed an individual style integrating linear thinking, a widely enlarged tonality with polytonal characteristics, and polyrhythmic textures stemming from the music of Bartók, Schoenberg and Berg. In many of his works the main formal force is a rhythmic impulse, combined with astute melodic and timbral invention. Pfister wrote much incidental music for stage and radio plays performed primarily in Germany and Switzerland.