Vienna Philharmonic mourns Dr Fritz
RIPMessage received from the Vienna Phil:
We mourn the loss of Dr. Fritz Sterz, our esteemed doctor and friend of the orchestra. His dedication and care for our orchestra over the years, both in Vienna and on tour, will remain in our memories forever.<
We are profoundly grateful for his tireless support and medical care.
Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his family.
Sterz, who retired from his hospital post three years ago, had been Deputy Head of Emergency Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna. Originally from Graz, he spent three years studying resuscitation with the pioneering Peter Safar in Pittsburgh. Known as the ‘father of therapeutic hypothermia, he had 569 publications to his name.
During the Vienna Phil’s first performance after Covid lockdown, ‘Dr. Fritz Sterz was brought in and experimented with sodium choloride to determine air flow. He measured fog clouds at a maximum of 20 inches (50 centimeters) from musicians’ mouths and noses, and approximately 30 inches (75 centimeters) from the end of a flute.’ On his advice, there was no social distancing on stage.
A true trailblazer.
There’s something strange about an orchestra having its own doctor, and especially one who advocated ignoring rules about social distancing during covid. I trust he did not advise the orchestra about the value of excluding women and Asians from membership–even if that is acceptable to some on the darker side of the Viennese mindset. The orchestra began admitting women in 2007 (earlier promises made in 1997 were were not fulfilled until then) and they might soon admit their first Asian (as last chair 2nd violin.) Her tenure period for admission should be ending soon.
(To further understand that worldview, watch for reactions to my comment on this blog.)
Have you really been sitting behind your desk all these years waiting for him to die so you could tell “him” that via an internet post on his announcement of death?
How pathetic can a person be? Shame on you!
You have no idea who Fritz Sterz was, nor do you know how many people he gave a second life to, nor do you know how many people will survive in the future as a result of his valuable work.
Don’t feed the trolls
I’d never even heard of him until this post, but I would expect a doctor to tell the VPO that its long-held idea that women would harm the technical cohesion of the orchestra because their bodies are slightly different is wrong–in fact ridiculous. Aber Wien bleibt Wien.
Wasn’t the VPO the first, if not the only, orchestra to become fully vaxed against COVID 19?
So they could play the New Year’s concert without distancing and masks anyway.
During the Berlin Phil tour in the USA at the time they left behind at least one musician that I know of who refused to be vaxed.
Mathieu Dufour?
He’s not the one I know of.
Very old-school. In the old days many opera companies and orchestras had their own in-house physicians. The Met had one, so did San Francisco Opera.