Peter Maag was born on 10 May 1919 in St. Gallen, Switzerland and died on 16 April 2001 in Verona, Italy.
His conducting mentors were Ernest Ansermet, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Franz von Hoesslin.
After Biel-Solothurn, he became Ernest Ansermet's assistant with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
His first appearance at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden was in 1959, with Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
In the same year he made his debut at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro.
Believing he was losing touch with music and theology, he sought guidance first from the Greek Orthodox Church and then planned to spend a few months at a Buddhist monastery near Hong Kong.
"Those two years spent meditating and praying in a small cell purified my soul.” Maag was the chief conductor of the Vienna Volksoper from 1964 to 1968.
He held posts at the RAI Symphony Orchestra, Turin and the Orquesta Nacional de España.
Maag's early stereophonic sound recordings for Decca were well received, and many have remained in the catalogs for decades.
Maag also recorded two LPs with the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in November 1958 with works of Chopin, Delibes, and Rossini.