Paul Hamburger

Paul Hamburger was born in Vienna in February 1920 and trained at the Vienna Conservatory before emigrating to Britain in 1939 ahead of the Anschluss. He completed his vocal-accompaniment training in London after wartime internment as an enemy alien, and joined the BBC studio music staff in the late 1940s as a coach and accompanist.

He spent nearly forty years at the BBC, becoming one of the central staff accompanists of the Music Division and the Third Programme through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. His broadcast work covered the substantial body of song repertoire — German lieder, French art song, English song, Russian and Czech repertoire — with regular partnerships with Janet Baker, Heather Harper, Norma Procter, Ian Partridge, Robert Tear and the wider circle of British recitalists. He was also a coach and accompanist at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh from the early 1970s, with substantial pedagogical influence on the next generation of British accompanists. His own concert and solo work was modest by choice; his contribution to British musical life was through the daily work of broadcast accompaniment over four decades.

Hamburger died in London in March 2004. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of his BBC broadcast and recital work from the post-war decades.