Resolutely focused on life

"You have moved the USDAM forward and changed it decisively", said Hans Martin Ulbrich in his speech on the occasion of Heinz Marti's honorary membership of the USDAM. We can only agree with this statement if we recall all he has achieved for the Union: not only was he behind the revision of the USDAM statutes, but he also initiated the setting up of the USDAM Foundation and prepared the USDAM's accession to the Swiss Trade Union Association. The design of a new USDAM corporate identity and logo, as well as the launch of the Union's website, are also due to his initiative, as are the establishment of the independent members' conference and the introduction of an old-age pension scheme for this category of members. Heinz Marti was also instrumental in the creation of the Swiss Music Review, which resulted from the merger of several specialist journals. The redesign of the orchestral training courses in Biel and the co-founding and support of the SON Foundation took place during his term as USDAM Central President. He also represented the USDAM on the board of FIM, the International Federation of Musicians, and took part in sessions and congresses around the world.

Violist, trade unionist and composer

As a violist, Heinz Marti worked first with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, then with the Zurich-based Radio Orchestra, and from 1968 with the Tonhalle and Opera Orchestras. After the separation of the two orchestras in 1981/82, he remained active with the Opera Orchestra until his retirement in 1996. He was a committee member, and later president, of the Zurich section of the USDAM, as well as the orchestra's staff representative on the Tonhalle committee. For him, his composing activity was by no means a secondary occupation: he even revealed in an interview that he had always considered composition a priority. Having trained with two of Switzerland's most important composers, Sándor Veress and Klaus Huber, Marti is the author of a catalog of some eighty works, some of which have been widely performed. In his speech on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, Alfred Zimmerlin described his work as a composer as follows: "Heinz Marti consistently chose his path early on, when he was still regarded as an avant-gardist. With hindsight, we no longer perceive the fact that he then wanted to become more intelligible and comprehensible as an aesthetic break, as was understood at the time, but rather as a coherent reflection on what he was already doing: composing with a certain rigor of construction, working with simple elements, easily comprehensible in detail but whose result is nevertheless complex. For him, the human was and remains the measure. In his compositions, Heinz Marti always kept in touch with the surrounding world. In his own commentary on his major orchestral work Wachsende Bedrohung (Growing threat 1984/85), he wrote that his play was born "under the oppressive impression of the inexorable advance of modern civilization's destruction of the environment". In his Muotathaler Nachtmusik for Schwyz accordion and string orchestra (1998), he convincingly combines Swiss folk music with contemporary music.

Diverse interests

His fellow musicians describe Marti as a man with a sense of social responsibility and a keen sense of justice, who was both humorous and cordial, but also critical, and to whom the improvement of musicians' working conditions was as important as their pension provision. No less important for him was the goal of ensuring that the profession of musician was better perceived, recognized and appreciated. In all his varied activities, Marti remained resolutely focused on life; he was highly cultured and appreciated other cultures (and their cuisines). In 1978, he bought a mountain pasture in Ticino, which he farmed every summer.

With Heinz Marti, Swiss musical life has lost a remarkable instrumentalist, composer and campaigner for our magnificent profession.