Death of the musicologist Peter Gülke
Peter Gülke, who held a professorship in musicology at the University of Basel from 1999 to 2002, has died at the age of 91 in his home town of Weimar.
Lydia Grün, President of the German Music Council, paid tribute to Gülke as «an outstanding personality who has set standards for decades - as a conductor, scholar, author and formative voice of cultural mediation work in the field of music». His work was characterized by the highest artistic and intellectual integrity. At the same time, he was an important source of inspiration and mentor whose judgment and experience carried weight far beyond his own discipline.
Gülke studied music and humanities in Weimar, Jena and Leipzig, worked as a repetiteur and dramaturge and increasingly turned to conducting from the late 1950s onwards. He worked as Kapellmeister at the Semperoper Dresden and as chief conductor in Stendal, Potsdam, Wuppertal and the city of Brandenburg. He has appeared internationally as a sought-after guest conductor and taught conducting at the University of Music in Freiburg and musicology at the University of Basel. From 2011 to 2014, he was President of the Saxon Academy of the Arts.
