In Memoriam Gerhard Mantel

31.12.1930 – 13.6.2012

In the name of a unique friendship and long-standing and intensive working relationship I would like to remember cellist Gerhard Mantel who very sadly passed away recently.

Gerhard not only was a musician with precision in thought and verbal expression, but an exceptional and sensitive pedagogue. Blessed with an adroit talent for observation he explored in depth, went to the bottom of things and dealt with them efficiently. At the same time his outlook was always directed ahead looking into the future. With Gerhard’s natural and unrestrained curiosity and his thirst for knowledge, with his enormous openness to life he not only accepted but enabled change. I knew Gerhard as a farsighted, reflecting and constructive artist with a ceaseless search for coherences. He was seeking, discovering and developing with the inquisitiveness of an insatiable researcher.

Whatever Gerhard did, wherever he went, he never tried to take the limelight and yet had a strong presence from within and in his very own way, living his life with sincerity and integrity. The loss is great. Gerhard will stay in my memory forever!