Received his first musical impressions from Heinrich Suter, conductor of the
symphony concerts of the General Music Company Basel. At the age of 12 he
already played the organ. From 1928 to 1930 he studied at the Hoch Conservatory
in Frankfurt am Main and was awarded the Mozart Award for a composition.
1930/1931 he was a pupil of Arnold Schönberg at the Arts Academy in Berlin. In
1934 he was musical director in Glarus, 1949 tot 1957 conductor of the Tonhalle
Orchestra Zürich, 1957 to 1970 principal conductor
of the Radio Orchestra Beromünster in Zürich, later in Basel. As a guest
conductor he returned regularly to the Tonhalle Orchestra, where he started,
together with his successor at the Tonhale, the Mahler tradition in Zürich. As
a director of the the Radio Orchestra Beromünster he performed many new
compositions of composers like Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Wladimir Vogel, Mathias
Seiber, Klaus Huber, in addition compositions of the Second School of Vienna.
From 1978 to 1984 he was a standing guest conductor at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
and in this position he was a predecessor of the conductor Simon Rattle. In the
sixties he was probably the busiest of the Swiss conductors. He was head of the
Mixed Choir Zürich, for many years president of Pro Musica Zürich. His
favourite composers were then Bach, Busoni, Reger, Schönberg. He was, together
with Alfred Keller from Rorschach, the only Swiss pupil of Schönberg.