Violinist and pedagogue Aida Stucki, whose pupils included Anne-Sophie Mutter, has died at the age of 90. Born in Cairo to Swiss and Italian parents, Stucki studied with Stefi Geyer and Carl Flesch before launching her career in the 1940s. As well as performing under conductors such as Hermann Scherchen and Armin Jordan, she formed successful duos with Clara Haskil, Pina Pozzi and Christoph Lieske. With her husband, Zurich concertmaster Giuseppe Piraccini, she founded the Piraccini-Stucki Quartet.

From 1948 Stucki taught violin and chamber music at the Wintherthur Conservatoire in Switzerland. Mutter, the most famous of her many pupils, told The Strad in 2009: ‘Stucki has a razor-sharp analytical brain with which she can tell immediately where the strong aspects of someone’s artistic capacity are. Over the decades that she was a teacher she taught generations of wonderful violinists who ended up as concertmasters, soloists or chamber musicians. She was able to give us the gift of curiositiy and self-analysis.’

Topics