Bertrand Roth (1855-1938)

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Bertrand Roth was a Swiss pianist and composer. He lived in Germany from childhood, first in Plauen, then in Leipzig as a student, and then in Dresden for 45 years. He was a pupil of Liszt, who recommended him to Raff, and the latter engaged him as a teacher at the Hoch Conservatory. After Raff's death Roth became one of the founders and co-directors of the new Raff Conservatory in 1882. In 1900, he had a concert hall built as an annexe to his villa in Dresden. This could seat over 100 people. He  organised regular concerts and especially promoted performances  of works by new composers. By the time the 'Musik-Saal Bertrand Roth' closed its doors for good in 1930, 280 performances with works by 250 composers had been held there.

As a composer Roth started late, when he was already around 40. He wrote mostly lieder and piano music. In 1998, the Swiss pianist Fritz Ruch issued a CD with piano works for the Swiss Pan label. This has long been deleted but a copy is currently available on ebay. A biography of Roth also by Fritz Ruch and also published in 1998 makes for fascinating reading. The appendix contains the names of all those composers who had works performed in Roth's salon. Top of the list by number of performance are names such as Reinhold Becker (11), Felix Draeseke (14) and Albert Fuchs (5).

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Here is a copy of the list of composers works by whom were performed at the Musik-Saal Bertrand Roth.