Hans-Martin Linde

Hans-Martin Linde was born in 1930 and grew up in a musical home in Iserlohn, Westphalia. In 1947 he went to study the flute with Gustav Scheck at the Freiburg Conservatory, where he also studied choral conducting and composition with Konrad Lechner. After completing his studies he worked as a flute teacher and choral conductor in his home town. At this time he started to take a keen interest in playing the recorder and the baroque transverse flute. In 1955 he embarked on a long period of work with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Radio) in Cologne, involving regular chamber music recordings and an appointment as flautist and later even as conductor with the Capella Coloniensis. From 1976 to 1979 Hans-Martin Linde was head of the senior department of the Basel Academy of Music. From 1979 to 1995 he ran a choral conducting class, taught performance practice and directed the Academy's choirs. Hans-Martin Linde has performed as a flautist in international concert halls and made several vinyl and CD recordings. Since 1983 he has increasingly been working as a conductor of instrumental groups and opera. Hans-Martin Linde has published articles on performance practice and methods for the recorder, and has composed works for orchestra and chamber and vocal ensembles. His compositions for recorder have become firmly established in the 20th-century repertoire for that instrument. He uses avant-garde playing techniques and experiments with new compositional structures, but a link with tonality and old forms is nevertheless always detectable.