Irwin Gage

Irwin Gage was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in September 1939 and studied at Yale University and the Vienna Music Academy under Erik Werba. He made his European début in Vienna in 1968 and settled in Zurich in 1971, where he taught at the Zurich Hochschule für Musik for the next thirty-five years.

He emerged as one of the leading accompanists of the international lieder recital circuit from the early 1970s onwards. His central partnerships were with Elly Ameling, Brigitte Fassbaender, Jessye Norman, Tom Krause, Walter Berry and Janet Baker, with a substantial parallel partnership with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. His Phonogram, Decca and Philips recordings of the Schubert and Schumann cycles — particularly those with Brigitte Fassbaender — defined the post-Geoffrey Parsons generation of lieder accompaniment. His teaching at the Zurich Hochschule, where he held the Lied class, shaped many of the singer-accompanist partnerships of the next two decades.

Gage died in Zurich in March 2018. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of his recital work from the 1970s and 1980s.