Few people know the musician Christoph Wagner. Anyone who listened to him improvise on the piano understood that it was this immediate proximity to music that motivated and drove him to create a science for musicians.
Born on May 20, 1931, in Marburg, Christoph Wagner grew up in Weilburg/Lahn in a culturally diverse and stimulating home. Despite only sporadic piano lessons due to the war, the boy soprano developed into a sensitive pianist who mastered the great works of piano and violin literature. Even as a young man, he was a sensitive chamber music partner and accompanist. From early childhood, improvisation was also second nature to him. Throughout his life, it remained a source of spiritual balance – later in a musical language that was partly reminiscent of Bach, but often also of Brahms or Schumann.
| 1958 – 1963 | Music studies in Detmold – majoring in conducting with Martin Stephani, piano with Renate Kretschmar-Fischer, composition with Günter Bialas |
Christoph Wagner’s longing for music was so constant that in 1958, after studying medicine (“out of reason”) and subsequently obtaining his doctorate, he began studying music with a major in conducting. In Detmold, he enjoyed a musically fulfilling time—but on the other hand, doubts crept in:
“The idea for a systematic investigation into the physiological foundations of music performance arose during my music studies, which followed my medical studies. Given the conceptual background of natural science, with its efforts to objectively validate insights and decisions as much as possible, it seemed strange that musical education relied solely on subjective experience, despite obvious contradictions in methods and results. Successes were admired, failures were usually explained away as a lack of talent, but their causes were not investigated. The increasing incidence of tendonitis and similar complaints remained consistently silent. It was obvious that many of my fellow students were unsure of themselves and suffered from self-doubt. As my studies progressed, it became increasingly clear to me that this dilemma could be significantly improved if the work of musicians and its physiological prerequisites were scientifically investigated. In 1963, at the end of his music studies in Detmold, he predicted to his then piano teacher Renate Kretschmar-Fischer while out for a walk: “There will be an institute dedicated to this task full-time.” – Eleven years later, the time had come.