Classical music
Henri Plumhof
Heinrich (Henri) Ludwig Christoph Plumhof (1836-1914), a composer, organist and choirmaster born in Bevensen, in Hanover, was the craftsman of Vevey’s musical renaissance. Arriving on the Riviera at twenty-three, he became a music teacher there and led many societies, developing choral singing as an admirer of Mendelssohn. Titular organist of the Temple Saint-Martin from 1883 to 1904, he rests in Vevey, which dedicated to him a bust, now in the Salle del Castillo, and a boulevard bearing his name.
Henri Plumhof, the musical renaissance of Vevey
From Hanover to Vevey
Born on 9 March 1836 in Bevensen, near Lüneburg, into a family of musicians, his father was an organist and cantor, Henri Plumhof studied in Hanover, where he became a violinist at the royal chapel (1853). In 1859 he settled in Vevey as a music teacher, choir director and organist, giving the town’s musical life a decisive impulse.
An admirer of Felix Mendelssohn, he founded the Vevey Société chorale, a men’s choir he led for twenty-eight years, directed the Sainte-Cécile oratorio choir in Lausanne (1865-1866 and 1873-1879), and worked with François Gabriel Grast and Hugo de Senger for the Fêtes des Vignerons of 1865 and 1889 (Croire Publications).
The organist of Saint-Martin, and a bust
In 1883 Henri Plumhof became the titular organist of the Temple Saint-Martin in Vevey. He left more than one hundred and twenty compositions, mostly choral, among them the cantatas “Grandson” (1873), “Helvétie” (1886) and “Patrie et liberté” (1898), written for the centenary of Vaud’s independence. The town had made him an honorary citizen in 1875; on 13 May 1911 it placed his bust in the entrance hall of the Casino du Rivage. He died in Vevey on 24 July 1914.
This marble bust now stands on the first floor of the Salle del Castillo, the former Casino du Rivage; a Boulevard Henri-Plumhof, named in 1935, also bears his name.