Christoph Vratz

Picture of Christoph Vratz dated 2011, provided to the programme and network

This music journalist, born in 1972 in Mönchengladbach, first studied German and Romance philologies in Wuppertal and Paris. Favourable circumstances offered him an opportunity to study for a PhD on the interaction between music and literature. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject “Die Partitur als Wortgefüge” [The Score as a Combination of Words]. In 1999, he followed the lure of music journalism and first started writing for paper “Rheinische Post” [Rhenisch Post]. In line with his immense inclination to listen and collect disc records, there followed later on a series of articles in professional journals such as “Opernwelt” [Opera World], “Fono Forum” and “nmz” [New Music Paper]. As from 2000, he has been heard repeatedly in various broadcasts at, amongst others, WDR [West German Broadcasting], the “Plattenprisma” [Record Prism] of SWR [Southwest Broadcasting] or the “Musikjournal” [Music Journal] at DLF [a German public broadcasting radio station]. Along with contributions to a number of book projects, he has been a member on the jury of the German Record Critics’ Award since 2003. In this capacity, Christoph Vratz presented in January 2011 Christian Gerhaher with the renowned Award of the German Record Critics 2010 at the Kölner Philharmonie concert hall at the end of the first half of a Mahler concert, this time for the recording of “Gustav Mahler, Lieder” [songs] (RCA Red Seal).

Christoph Vratz’s distinct closeness to Schumann is attested, amongst other things, by the interviews conducted during the Schumann anniversary year, for instance with the French pianist Eric LeSage (Fono Forum, June 2010, pp. 16-19), with Rudolf Buchbinder, the “grand seigneur of the piano world” before this performance in the series “Mein Schumann” [My Schumann] at the Düsseldorfer Tonhalle concert hall (http://tonhalle.posterous.com/?tag=meinschumann), and by his “Diskographische Anmerkungen” [Discographic Notes] on Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” [A Poet’s Love] from the first recordings to this day. There, he views all the recordings of the 1980s/1990s as “distinctly outperformed” by the grand recording of Christian Gerhaher in 2004. (cf. Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe, in: Fono Forum, June 2010, pp. 30-34)