Paul Sacher; Swiss Philanthropist and Conductor

Paul Sacher, the eminent Swiss philanthropist and conductor who commissioned or led first performances of more than 200 20th century musical works, died Wednesday in Zurich, Switzerland, after a long illness.

He was 93 and, through his 1934 marriage into the Hoffmann-La Roche pharmaceuticals empire, was one of the world’s richest men, with a family fortune estimated at $13 billion.

With that wealth, Sacher pursued a lifelong commitment to commissioning works from composers. The star-studded roster of his beneficiaries includes Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Richard Strauss, Arthur Honegger, Paul Hindemith, Frank Martin, Benjamin Britten, Hans Werner Henze, Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez.

“I wanted to hear the voice of our time, how a man living today composes music,” he told London’s Financial Times in 1993. “For me, the most important musician is the composer.”

Among the important scores he commissioned are Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta”; Hindemith’s “Die Harmonie der Welt”; Strauss’ final masterpiece, “Metamorphosen”; Honegger’s Second and Fourth Symphonies, and Stravinsky’s Concerto in D, for string orchestra, and “A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer.”

His commissions covered a generous swath of modernism, but they also reflected some particular likes and dislikes. Early on, Sacher detested the piano, preferring the harpsichord, which led him to persuade Swiss composer Martin to include that instrument in his “Petite Symphonie Concertante,” -- a Sacher commission composed in 1944-45.

And, not initially drawn to 12-tone music, Sacher never commissioned the likes of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, for which he was much criticized. Later in life he told an interviewer, “My greatest regret is that I didn’t do more for Webern and the composers of the Second Viennese School. At that time I wasn’t able to understand the important role they played in the music of this century.”

In addition to commissions, his musical legacy also includes the Paul Sacher Foundation, a repository of the autograph scores, correspondence and other papers of eminent 20th century composers. One prize in the collection is the entire Stravinsky archive, which he purchased in 1983 by outbidding the New York Public Library and the Morgan Library, reportedly paying $5.25 million. Three years later, the collection was housed in its own building in Basel, which now also holds the musical manuscripts of Webern, Martin, Berio, Boulez, Gyorgy Ligeti and American Elliott Carter, among many others.

Born April 28, 1906, in Basel, the son of a gardener, Sacher studied conducting at the Basel Conservatory with Felix Weingartner and music theory at Basel University with Karl Nef.

In 1926, he founded the Basel Chamber Orchestra and began to concentrate on neglected areas of the repertory, primarily pre-Classical and contemporary works, and in 1927 he commissioned his first work. Two years later, he founded the Basel Chamber Choir, and in 1933, he established the Schola Cantorum Basilensis, a center for the study of pre-Baroque music.

In 1934, Sacher married Maja Hoffmann-Stehlin, widow of Emmanuel Hoffmann, whose father had founded the Hoffmann-La Roche pharmaceutical firm, maker of the drugs Valium and Librium, as well as several major medications used in the fight against AIDS.

Sacher served on the board of Hoffmann-La Roche for six decades, regaining his family’s majority stake in the company after World War II. He is also credited with key guidance of the firm during the 1970s, when it faced charges of profiteering in its handling of Valium.

Sacher made his U.S. conducting debut in 1955, leading the Manhattan-based Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall in New York, and he continued to make conducting appearances through his 80s.

His wife, a significant patron of 20th century visual arts, died in 1989. The couple had no children.