Maurizio Pollini
15 January 1942 – 23 March 2023
One of the greatest musicians of our time, A poet of the piano. Pianist and conductor.
I have had the privilege to attend his concerts since my student times in London, to hear his recitals in Berlin, Salzburg, Lucerne, Zürich and of course in Milan, to hear him play in orchestra concerts with his great friend, conductor, Claudio Abbado or play together with Martha Agerich.
Unforgettable the visit to his solo concert at Teatro alla Scala Milan with Jaïna Schlemmer, my mother, on my birthday on 18 October 2009.
Rigorous in the choice of the repertoire of his concerts, Pollini juxtaposed compositions of the great masters Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, with music by Arnold Schoenberg and his contemporaries Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez.
Pollini travelled with a "Fabbrini" - one of the Steinway grand pianos worked on by the Italian piano maker Angelo Fabbrini. Always accompanying the maestro, Fabbrini was ever-present to retune the piano before each concert. I would meet him backstage in Berlin, Stresa, and elsewhere.
With both lightness and precision, Pollini has made music more intelligible and at the same time offered us so much generosity.
On the morning of 26 March 2024, in the foyer of Teatro alla Scala, his coffin was laid out for people to bid him farewell. Through the central door to the auditorium In the distance on the stage of the theatre was placed his grand piano “Fabbrini”. After paying my respects in the foyer, I had the great privilege of being invited upstairs to Pollini’s personal “Camerino” at Teatro alla Scala to offer condolences to his wife, the musician and pianist Marilisa Marzotto. Here, he had his own piano and prepared himself before recitals. Marilisa Marzotto and Pollini had met when they were eleven years old."
Photo: C. Raman Schlemmer
C. Harish
1960 – 7 February 2024
Son of Sree C. Parankutty and Smt. Sathirathnam Parankutty
Changaramkumarath Family
Mullassery, Kerala, India
Cousin brother of C. Raman Schlemmer
C. Harish is survived by his mother Sathirathnam, wife Beena, sons C. H. Hiran (Babaloo)
and C. H. Priyank (Bhavan)
C. Harish with his wife Beena on traditional Kerala swing, Malabar House, Fort Cochin,
Kochi, Kerala, India
Photo: C. Raman Schlemmer
September 2014
C. Harish and C. Raman Schlemmer on traditional Kerala swing, Malabar House, Fort
Cochin, Kochi, Kerala, India
September 2014
Photo: Photo Archive C. Raman Schlemmer
Harald Falckenberg
1943 – 2023
We mourn our dear friend, collector and patron of the arts, Harald Falckenberg
Pictured here with Robert Wilson
Claude Ruiz-Picasso
1947 – 2023
Son of Françoise Gilot (1921 - 2023) and Pablo Picasso, brother of Paloma Picasso
Photo: Claude Picasso with U. Jaïna Schlemmer and C. Raman Schlemmer, at the Oskar Schlemmer retrospective exhibition at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1996
Malou Kirchhofer (Maitra)
1950 – 2023
Medical eye specialist
Malou and Raman started school together at the boarding school Avrona, Tarasp, Engadin, Switzerland. The teaching followed the school curriculum of Rudolf Steiner
Photo: C. Raman Schlemmer
Wolfgang Meyer-Rässler
1950 – 2023
Interior designer
Called Melo, friend since schooldays at Waldorfschule in Stuttgart, Germany
Menahem Pressler
1923 – 2023
Musician
Born in Magdeburg, Germany, he and his Jewish family escaped in 1939 via Trieste to Palestine. In 1955 Pressler founded the Beaux Arts Trio. C. Raman Schlemmer remembers: “I heard the Trio, when they performed at the Stresa Festival, Lago Maggiore, Italy. I met Pressler on a train on 16 November 2013 when I was travelling from Berlin to Weimar, and he was on his way to Leipzig. We had a vivid conversation and when passing near Magdeburg, he told me his story of his escape, life in Palestine and teaching in the US. Pressler had started a solo career at the age of 90. He invited me to his debut concert at Philharmonie Berlin, and the rehearsals. W. A. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major K. 453. I sat next to his daughter. Simon Rattle sat in the public. He said such moving encouraging words to the young musicians, after the rehearsal. A great musician and a wonderful human being.”
Photo: Menahem Pressler leaving the train in Bitterfeld and saluting C. Raman Schlemmer
Photo: C. Raman Schlemmer
Peter Weibel
1944 – 2023
Media artist and curator
Director of ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany from 1999 until his death on 1 March 2023
Photo: Peter Weibel with choreographer William Forsythe, ZKM Karlsruhe, 3 February 2023. Photo C. Raman Schlemmer
Arata Isozaki 磯崎 新
1931 – 2022
Architect, Japan
Pritzker Price in 2019
Since the 1980s Arata Isozaki and his wife, the sculptress Aiko Miyawaki, were friends with C. Raman Schlemmer. When U. Jaïna Schlemmer visited with her son C. Raman Tokyo in 1995 they invited by Isozaki and Aiko Miyawaki to their house.
Arata Isozaki in Beijing, 2012
Photo: C. Raman Schlemmer
Issey Miyake 三宅 一生
1928 – 2022
Fashion designer, founder of several brands under his name.
Inventor of technology-driven fabrics and functional clothing design, developed together with textile expert Makiko Minagawa
C. Raman Schlemmer met Miyake on his first trip to Japan in the 1980s. Together with Makiko Minagawa, Martand Singh, and U. Jaïna Schlemmer they travelled together in India
C. Raman Schlemmer wears Issey Miyake IM Aoyama
Photo: C. Raman Schlemmer in Issey Miyake IM coat, made of paper fabric
Brenda Richardson
1942 – 2022
Deputy director for art and curator of modern painting and sculpture at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, USACurator of epoch-making exhibitions including the black paintings by Frank Stella, and the Baltimore-based filmmaker John Waters. With the support and contribution of U. Jaïna Schlemmer and C. Raman Schlemmer, Brenda Richardson curated the first retrospective exhibition of the work of Oskar Schlemmer in the US in 1985, together with Arnold Lehman, director of the museum. The exhibition travelled to The Walker Institute, the Diego Museum of Art, the IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1986. Brenda became friends with Tut Schlemmer, U. Jaïna Schlemmer and C. Raman Schlemmer
Dagny Corcoran Janss
1945 - 2022
1978 Dagny and James Corcoran invited C. Raman Schlemmer to work for the Joseph Cornell exhibition, at their James Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles, California. The exhibition was curated by Walter Hopps. Dagny and Jim introduced Raman to Lucina Childs, Robert Wilson, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed and Nancy Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, David Hockney, Joan and Joe Quinn, Nick Wilder. They organized a party for Raman at Santa Monica Palisades, with guests Robert Rauschenberg, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, Billy Al Bengston.
In 1977 Dagny Corcoran founded Art Catalogues in Los Angeles, offering an international range of books and catalogues produced for and about museum and gallery exhibitions.
Photo: Dagny Corcoran and C. Raman Schlemmer 1978
Christiene Pierburg
1944 – 2021
Philanthropist and supporter of the arts
Born and died in Badenweiler, Christiene lived the past decades in the house of the poet René Schickele, which she acquired with her husband Jürgen Pierburg and renovated and creatively redesigned.
Christine Pierburg regularly attended the Salzburg Festival – also in company of C. Raman Schlemmer.
In the last years of his life, she became a confidant friend of Herbert von Karajan and travelled with the Berliner Philharmoniker internationally.
Photo: Christine Pierburg with C. Raman Schlemmer on her birthday at the opening of the exhibition Monet, 20th anniversary of Fondation Beyeler, 30 March 2017
Hagen Lieberknecht
1940 – 2020
Author and curator
Friends with contemporary artists, especially Sigmar Polke.
His conversations with Joseph Beuys were published in 1972 in:
- Joseph Beuys. Zeichnungen 1947- 1959 Gespräch zwischen Joseph Beuys und Hagen Lieberknecht
- Sigmar Polke; Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam & Städtisches Kunstmuseum, Bonn 1983/1984
- Sigmar Polke et les esprits supérieurs, 2015
Martand Singh
1947 –2017
Martand Singh, called by his friends Mapu, charismatic cultural figure from India; connoisseur of Indian textiles and crafts; Member of the Governing Council of the Calico Museum of Textiles, Ahmedabad; Founding Secretary of the Indian Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage (INTACH); Chairman of INTACH UK Trust; Trustee of the Mehrangarh Fort Museum Trust, Jodhpur, and Advisor, Restoration of the Chowmohallah Palace, Hyderabad. Idea initiator of pioneering textile exhibitions and publications, and heritage-conservation initiatives. As a producer-curator, Mapu "represented a unique phase in the post-colonial phase of nation-building, seeding the emergence of contemporary aesthetics in Indian design and fashion. Its impact was global, while being firmly rooted in local contexts and vocabularies." Visionary landmark exhibitions on Indian textiles,"Vishwakarma", in India and internationally, "Costumes of Royal India" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1985-86); Festival of India exhibitions in the 1980s in London, Paris, Moscow, and Tokyo, Hamburg and Stuttgart; "Khadi: The Fabric of Freedom" in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata (2002) and Tokyo (2018).
1986 Mapu was awarded the Padmabhushan, one of the highest civilian awards by the Government of India. Martand Singh was of royal descent.
There is an infinite number of whites...
White of the jasmine flower,
White of the sea foam,
White of the August moon,
White of the conch shell,
White of the clouds that have been emptied of rain.
― Martand Singh