BEGINNINGS
VIENNA TRIO
At the beginning of his concert activities, Peter Guth played as a violinist in the Wiener Trio, with Rudolf Buchbinder, piano and Heidi Litschauer, violoncello. The then youngest, internationally recognized chamber music ensemble won first prize at the ARD competition in Munich, 1961. Compiled 1957 as Vienna Children’s Trio with talented pupils of the music academy, they caused a stir as Young Vienna Trio in the music-studio of the Austrian pavilion at the world exhibition in Brussels 1958. International agencies and music societies showed great interest and the Vienna Trio was soon on the way in the whole world as far as New Zealand and Australia. With their concert series and recordings they were the leading ensemble of this genre for fifteen years (a. o. with their exemplary composite recording of the piano trios by Franz Schubert).
FAMILY & STUDIES
Peter Guth was born February 2nd 1943 in Istanbul, as a single child of Austrian parents who lived in Turkish emigration from 1939 to 1949. The mother Katharina Sträussler, trained as ballet dancer and vocalist, directed a dancing school in Vienna before the NS era. The father Karl Guth had studied percussion at the Vienna Academy of Music, also played accordion and was able in difficult times to work in musical entertainment. He and his brother Friedrich, who was known under the stage name Fred Garden as an outstanding violinist and saxophone player, succeeded with engagements for their dance band, to get abroad short before World War II.
Peter got first violin lessons at the age of five from his uncle Fritz. When he came to Austria for the first time, as the family returned home in post-war period, his violin teacher was Ewald Kunz, a German-born student of the well-known violin tutor Prof. Ernst Morawec.
Post-graduate student with David Oistrakh
When Peter was thirteen years old, Morawec admitted him in his violin class at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts, where he received the diploma with distinction in 1965.
In recognition of his artistic achievements and notable references, he was enabled as first Austrian scholarship holder in cultural exchange with the Soviet Union, to study for three years 1967 to 1970 with David Oistrakh in his performance class at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatorium and to get thoroughly acquainted with the Russian school of violin playing.
Encounters with celebrities of Russian cultural life, like Shostakovich or Rostropovich, his friendship with fellow students, who later became famous in the West and last not least experiences with living conditions in the Soviet Union were overwhelming impressions for Guth’s further life.
SOLOIST
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Peter Guth had a multitude of successful appearances with international orchestras as soloist in violin concertos of the standard repertoire (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Berg, Prokofiev, Khachaturian) and in concerts for multiple soloists (Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms). In 1978 he was the soloist of the first Austrian performance of the second violin concerto by Dmitri Shostakovich with the ORF Symphony Orchestra under Leif Segerstam.
Amongst his partners in sonata- and violin recitals were the world class pianists Philippe Entremont and Radu Lupu, with whom he had performed already during their studies in Moscow. Main works for violin and piano were acquired with his long time accompanists Carlos Rivera and Igo Koch. Also with Oleg Maisenberg and in recitals in Belgium with Patrick Crommelynck. Australian pianist Roger Woodward opened the approach to new music for him.
Violin recital in Schönbrunn Palace
Peter Guth has the curiously same birthday, February 2nd, as two of the greatest violinists of all time:
Fritz Kreisler * February 2nd 1875 in Vienna - Jascha Heifetz * February 2nd 1901 in Vilna.